Justice Is Served
by cmaddict
Summary: What happens when justice collides with revenge? For Mac and Stella, all hell breaks loose. Will they come out alive? MacStella, hints of DL and FA. Now complete!
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** Here's the multi-chapter case fic I've been promising for the last couple of months. Sorry this has taken so long. Darn real life! Anyways, I hope you guys enjoy this. I'm a little nervous; I haven't written a case fic in quite a while. Please leave me any comments, good or bad... I welcome anonymous reviews too. And any logged review will get a personal reply. You guys have been amazing so far!

By the way, this is set between 5.23 and 5.24... so Lindsay and Danny had their baby, but Stella and Mac haven't gone to Greece. Just to clear that up :D

**Many, many thanks** to _lily moonlight_, the most amazing beta in the world! Thanks also to everyone who reviewed As Time Goes By and Welcome the Dawn. You're all amazing!

**Disclaimer:** I'm in no way affiliated with Jerry Bruckheimer, CBS Productions, or the cast of CSI:NY... although I certainly wish I was.

**Chapter 1**

Spring would be arriving a little late this year.

It was mid-March, and winter had apparently decided that it wasn't going to go out without a bang. And what a bang it made. In the past twenty-four hours, more than six inches of snow blanketed the city, leaving it looking more like a Christmas card than a Happy St. Patrick's Day card. The sudden blizzard left the weathermen and meteorologists scratching their heads, wondering what the hell had happened to their forecast of warmer temperatures. Obviously the big guy upstairs, whoever he was, had some very different ideas of what made spring. The rest of the city just shrugged and bundled up, going about their merry way. They'd learned a long time ago that the weather guys or girls were just as fallible as the rest of them.

On West Eighty-Sixth Street, one of the hubs of the Upper West Side, a lone man shuffled through the snowdrifts. Though it was after eleven at night, such a sight wasn't so unusual in the city that never slept. The few passersby on the street ignored him, stumbling past him on their way to crash after visiting the clubs downtown. Everyone else was safely tucked away in their nice warm beds. Not that they would've thought anything about him had they been up. He blended in perfectly to his surroundings, a persona that he had very carefully contrived to camouflage with the other West Side inhabitants. But here on the Upper West Side in the middle of an unseasonal snowstorm, he didn't have to worry so much about prying eyes out late at night.

It wasn't like anyone would remember him in the first place. He was a fairly unmemorable person, particularly in appearance. Average height, average build, average looks. The only things remarkable about him were his cold, bitter blue eyes. Hard and unfeeling were two words that would most aptly describe his dealings with the rest of humanity.

In actuality, he was about business.

His business just happened to be illegal. Like so many others.

A shadow loitered next to one of the apartment buildings, puffs of smoke appearing in the cold winter air from the cigarette hanging from his mouth. He was tall and just a little on the pudgy side, dressed in a designer business suit that attested more to his plunging credit than his actual status in the world. The man was a stock broker, one of hundreds of thousands on Wall Street. But he wasn't just any stock broker. His clientele consisted of… well… some of the seedier characters in New York City. It wasn't a fact that he spread around very often, but it was a fact nonetheless. And his ability to afford those designer suits and expensive cigarettes he favored depended on the less-than-honest cash funneled to him by those less-than-honest characters.

He turned his head and saw the other man coming. "I was beginnin' to think you weren't gonna show," the shadow said quietly, flicking his cigarette into a snow bank a couple feet away.

"Well, I'm here now," he replied softly.

The shadow stepped into the light from a nearby streetlamp, revealing a less-than-attractive face with glittering brown eyes and a crooked nose that had been broken one too many times. Snowflakes clung to the fringe of hair on his balding head, and the buttons on his overcoat strained against his protruding belly. "Cold weather we're having tonight, huh?"

He sighed. He didn't have time for small talk. "I should think that you would want to get this over with as soon as possible. You never know who's going to be walking by."

"Yeah, yeah, fine." He reached down and picked up a brown leather briefcase. "Here's the money." Quickly he took two steps closer to the stranger and handed it to him.

"All of it?"

The balding man laughed loudly, the steam from his breath twisting and twirling above his head. "Do you really think I'd try to pull something like that on you? I'd like to keep my head, thank you very much."

He nodded and snapped open the briefcase locks. His eyes scanned its contents, surveying the stacks of bills with a professional eye. He'd done this enough to know when he was being scammed.

Finally he closed the briefcase and slid his free hand into his pocket. "Looks good."

The other man visibly relaxed, a huge grin spreading across his face. He'd never really done anything like this before, bought drugs from a stranger. But this guy came highly recommended. He wasn't looking to score much… just a little to make it through the long, hard economic times ahead. And maybe some for after the stocks went back up… "Great," he said. "You got what you promised? I should get home; my wife's a bit of worrier."

"One of those types that stays up late when you don't make it home?"

"Yeah. It gets a little annoying sometimes. You got one of those?"

He shook his head. "No. But I do feel very bad for your wife."

"Why's that?"

"She's going to be up very late tonight."

Suddenly his right hand flew out of his pocket, gripping a semi-automatic pistol with a silencer protruding from the barrel. Fear flickered across the face of the other man, and any normal human being would've felt at least a little compassion.

But he was certainly not normal. Without blinking, he gently, almost lovingly squeezed the trigger twice.

The soft, high-pitched whine of the bullets coming out of the silencer broke the stillness of the winter night, but there was no one to hear it. Just like there was no one around to see the two bullets slam into the other man's chest, emitting a fine pink mist into the air as the soon-to-be-dead-man's eyes widened in shock. He watched coldly as the other man crumpled to the ground, his blood turning the white snow on the sidewalk to a brilliant crimson.

In the neighboring brownstones, not a light flipped on. Not a dog barked. Not a creature stirred. No one but him was there to witness the man's last gasping breaths as his life slowly leaked out of him.

He shook his head as he slid the weapon back into his pocket and picked up the briefcase, stopping just a moment to gather the spent shell casings and slide them into his pocket.

"Here we go," he whispered.

*****

Detective Stella Bonasera ran a hand through her tangled curls and sighed, thoroughly exhausted. It was close to 11:30, and she wasn't even halfway done with the stacks of paperwork that had accumulated on her desk over the shift. Who would've thought that in an eight-hour shift, they could build up so damn fast?

Paperwork was never a part of the job description. If it had been, she might've given at least a little more thought to another job.

Maybe.

She tossed the pen on her desk and spun around in her swivel chair to stare at the steadily falling snow, tiredly absorbed in her thoughts. It had been a long day at the courthouse downtown, waiting to testify in a trial that had certainly not gone the way she thought it would. When the verdict was handed down, she seriously thought she might strangle the jury foreman for the crime of sheer stupidity.

It wasn't the first case she'd seen go down the tubes, and it probably wouldn't be the last. But this one… this one had gotten to her from the very beginning. A young woman, mother of two young children, had been run over by a reckless driver in the middle of downtown Manhattan. Twenty witnesses pointed out the car that had done it. Stella had found the victim's hair and DNA in the grill of the car. And the jury still returned a verdict of 'not guilty' on the top count of vehicular homicide and convicted on the lesser count of negligence. Stella had to admit, the defense attorney had done a fantastic job of manipulating the jury's sympathies. As much as the ADA had tried to focus the twelve jurors, the damage had been done.

And it burned her.

Stella worked for two things in her life. Two things that drove her to be the best damn cop or CSI she could possibly be: Truth and justice.

Forget how clichéd and Superman-esque that sounded.

She'd never had much of either in her younger years. The nuns at St. Basil's told her that she'd be adopted at any time – an outright lie. Her foster sister and best friend had to kill her pedophile foster father because the system wouldn't do anything about it – where was the justice in that? So when she became a cop, she vowed that she would do her damndest to make sure that the victims she encountered got truth and justice. Someone in the world deserved it.

But juries were funny things. They weren't always concerned about truth or justice for the victim. Sometimes they followed the law, and sometimes they followed their emotions. In this case, as in several others, they'd felt sorry for the guy, buying into his excuses of a messy break-up with his wife and a lifelong struggle with alcohol.

In Stella's mind, whatever vices the guy had didn't negate the fact he'd taken someone's life.

Apparently the jury disagreed.

Releasing another forlorn sigh, she brushed a stray curl from her face and folded her arms across her abdomen, staring out the window. Fat, white snowflakes fluttered down from the darkened sky, swirling about in the stiff northern wind. Despite her hatred of the cold, if it weren't for the stacks of paperwork on her desk and the face of that young mother embedded in her mind's eye, the night might've actually been rather pretty. Even if a meteorologist somewhere needed a refresher course.

"I thought you'd gone home."

The familiar baritone startled her, and she whipped around, a hand over her heart. Mac Taylor, her boss and long-time friend, leaned against her doorframe, top button of his blue dress shirt unbuttoned and a black overcoat draped over his arm. He wore a tired expression on his handsome face, an expression that had over the years become rather habitual.

She leaned back in her chair and smiled wearily at him. She should've known he would check on her. He was her best friend – had been for more than a decade. "Just finishing up some paperwork."

Mac cocked an eyebrow at her. "It's late, Stel. You need to get some rest."

Stella chuckled and shook her head. "I must be in some sort of alternate universe, because this is the weirdest role reversal I've ever seen."

A grin slowly split his face, and his steel-blue eyes twinkled. "Someone's gotta tell you to get some rest."

"Maybe you should listen to your own advice once in a while," she chided playfully. "You on your way out?"

He shifted the coat to his other forearm and nodded. "Yeah. I saw your light on and thought I'd see how you were doing."

Her eyebrow nearly disappeared into her hairline. "Checkin' up on me, Mac Taylor?"

A soft sigh escaped his lips, and he ran his free hand through his dark hair. "I heard about the verdict this morning. I know that case really got to you."

Stella shook her head and gave him a completely fake reassuring smile. "I'm fine, Mac. Really."

The glare he shot her way could only be interpreted as "_Bullshit"_, and Stella couldn't resist a grin. He knew her too well. As he should, after ten years of friendship.

"I'm fine," she repeated. "It's just a case. You win some, you lose some."

"And yet there's still that one case that gets under your skin." He shifted his weight slightly so his back leaned against the doorframe before he continued. "Talk to me, Stella."

She ran a hand over her face and sighed again. "Wha'dya want me to say, Mac? That I wanted to strangle every single member of that jury with my bare hands? That when they read the verdict, it broke my heart to see those two little girls sitting next to their grandmother, asking where Mommy was? That –" She stopped, tears threatening to spill out of her eyes. There was no way she was going to cry. Nuh-uh.

"It's not your fault."

The quietly-spoken words made her jerk her head up sharply and her jaw go slack as she stared at Mac. He hadn't moved from his position by the door, but the look in his blue eyes conveyed a sense of sympathy and comfort.

"What?" she asked.

"It's not your fault," he repeated just as gently as before. "You did everything you possibly could to get justice for that woman. You followed the evidence to a clear conclusion, and from what I know about you, there's no way you didn't present it in a clear and concise manner in court. None of this is on your shoulders, Stella. None of it."

She stared at him for a moment, her brain processing everything he'd said to her. None of it was her fault. Deep down inside, she knew that, but she wasn't sure her heart knew it. Nevertheless, his words touched her deeply. "I still wanted to pull out my Glock and shoot that son of a bitch," she muttered.

Mac chuckled and shook his head. "I probably would've called it justifiable."

Stella joined him in laughter, got up from her chair, and crossed the room in three quick steps. "Thanks, Mac," she whispered as she pressed a tender kiss to his cheek. "You're a good friend."

A slight pink hue tinted his cheeks, and he shrugged nonchalantly. "What're friends for?" he asked, giving her a smile in return. "I'm just returning the favor."

"Well, how about I return the favor?" she asked, leaning against the edge of her desk. "Dinner?"

"It's eleven-thirty, Stel," he reminded her with a grin.

"It's not like you're going to sleep, Mac."

He frowned playfully at her. "Actually, I was thinking about calling it an early night tonight."

Stella gasped and looked up at the ceiling, scanning it for some invisible object.

"What?" he asked.

"Just seeing if I could spot pigs flying. The resident insomniac is going home to sleep."

He shot a mock glare in her direction before breaking out into a grin. "All right, wise ass. How about breakfast?"

She thought about it for a moment and then nodded with a smile. "At that diner down the block?"

"The one that makes those pancakes you like so much?" Mac smiled as she nodded again. "Meet you at seven?"

"Deal. But I'm buying."

"Only if you can beat me to the check."

"Oh, I have ways, Mac Taylor."

He laughed and slowly walked backward down the hall toward the elevator. "I'm sure you do. Get some sleep, huh?"

"You too," she called after him, smiling as he gave her another grin before waving and turning around again, slinging his coat over his shoulder as he walked.

Stella watched as he disappeared around the corner, leaving her alone again in her office. Somehow even seeing him helped the heartache and the anger go away. It always amazed her at how well they knew each other, how they could each say just what the other needed to hear at the time. Mac Taylor was the only constant in her life – her colleague, her best friend, the man that she compared all other men to.

_Don't even go there_, she admonished herself silently as she shut down her computer. Thoughts like that had no business being thought, especially about him.

She sighed one more time as she grabbed her overcoat off the coat rack near her door. Mac was right. It wasn't her fault. She'd worked a double trying to gather the evidence to solve that case. She'd almost single-handedly pulled Starbucks out of their financial hole with all the coffee she bought during the investigation. And she had been the one to ever so gently tell those two little girls that Mommy had gone to heaven to be with Jesus.

She wasn't the one that dropped the ball.

But she would certainly be the one paying for it in sleepless nights.

She released another sigh and reached over to flip off the lamp next to her computer. At least she could try to get a little sleep tonight.

*****

Morning came far too soon, however. The sun rose slowly from his hiding place, no longer blocked out by dark and foreboding snow clouds. Its rays glistened off the snow, making it glitter with red and pink and golden hues. The city was relatively quiet, buried under six inches of snow, refusing to awaken until the very last minute.

The only people awake at this moment were those bustling around on the other side of the yellow tape, curtaining off a portion of West Eighty-Sixth Street from prying eyes and wandering feet. Uniformed officers stood still next to the crime scene tape, guarding the scene like the guards of Buckingham Palace, stalwart in their duty as officers of the law. On the far side of the tape, next to one of the apartment buildings, was the real action, and their job was to see that it could continue uninterrupted by curious rubbernecks.

_Crunch. Crunch. Crunch._

The snow crackled loudly under Mac's feet, protesting the sudden disturbance from its previously peaceful state. Every breath he took vaporized immediately, steam wafting through the air, twisting and curling around his head until it finally vanished into the air. He shifted the silver case from his right hand to his left so that he could thrust it into the pocket of his overcoats, away from the freezing cold.

His gray-blue eyes surveyed the scene in front of him as he ducked under the yellow police tape. To his left stood Detective Don Flack Jr., speaking in low tones to a middle-aged, gray-haired woman in a dark blue coat. The younger detective furiously scribbled notes into a small pad of paper until he noticed Mac standing there, watching him. Flack gave the older man a nod, signaling that he would be there in a moment.

That matter settled, Mac shifted his gaze to the hubbub in front of him. The first thing he noticed was a heavy-set, middle-aged man lying in a supine position in the middle of the sidewalk. Dark crimson stood out brightly against the pure white snow around the body, the coagulated blood frozen to the sidewalk.

The second thing he noticed was Stella bending over the body, snapping pictures of a scene that was almost as beautiful as it was macabre. The flash on the camera whined loudly as she pressed the button again to get another angle. After just a moment, she looked up and gave him a small smile, her green eyes twinkling in the soft morning light.

"So much for breakfast, huh?" she said with a grin as he approached.

Mac grimaced as he set his case down on the sidewalk. "Sorry about that."

"Not your fault."

"I'll still make it up to you somehow." She gave him a grateful smile before he continued. "What do we got?"

Stella slung the camera strap around her neck and put a free hand on her hips. "Two gunshot wounds to the chest." She pointed to the man's overcoat, which had gray streaks on the chest. "Pattern of GSR suggests relatively close range. Hawkes and Danny are on their way."

"And nobody heard a thing." The two CSI's turned as Flack stopped beside Mac. The handsome, blue-eyed detective flipped his notebook closed with a sigh. "Lady that lives here found him when she stepped out to walk her dog. Says she was up until after midnight last night and didn't hear a thing. No voices, no shouts, nada."

Mac frowned and looked at Stella. "How do you shoot a person in one of the quietest neighborhoods in Manhattan, and nobody hears a thing?"

"Silencer, maybe?" Stella shrugged as she bent down next to the body.

"Any ID?"

She reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a wallet. "Wallet's still here." She flipped it open and briefly scanned its contents. "Name on the driver's license is Peter Lombard, address in Brooklyn. Credit cards are still here, along with about a hundred bucks in cash."

"So no robbery," Flack commented.

"Here's something." Stella pulled a card out of the wallet and held it up to the light. "Our vic was a stock broker. Jenkins, Oliver, and Marks. I know this place; it's a financial firm off Liberty."

"Who'd wanna kill a stock broker?" Flack asked, raising an eyebrow at Mac.

Mac harrumphed and glanced at Stella. "In this economy? I can think of about 350 million motives."

* * *

**A/N2**: So... How'd I do? You guys want more? Please let me know! Reviews are a fanfiction writer's payday!


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **Thank you all so much for all the sweet reviews! Sorry this is so belated... it's been a lousy day. I'm glad you're enjoying this... I'm enjoying writing it. I like to have a big summer project because life gets way too busy during the school year. Please let me know what you think of this chapter too! Reviews make all the months of hard work worthwhile!

**Thanks** to minimorgan and Holly, the anonymous reviewers from Chapter 1. Sorry I couldn't send you a reply, but I definitely appreciated the reviews very, very much. Thanks also to Lily - without your help I'd still be where I was two months ago!

* * *

**Chapter 2**

Danny Messer tried to suppress a yawn and failed miserably as he ducked under the yellow crime scene tape. Even after six years of working for the crime lab, he could never quite get used to the early morning hours – and yes, he most definitely considered eight o'clock early. Especially with a new baby in the house. He was quickly discovering that newborn babies didn't like to sleep, his little Lucy in particular. His wife was so exhausted that he just let her sleep at night, getting up to cradle the little girl on his chest and coo lullabies to her.

His wife. The thought still amazed Danny. He had a wife and family now. Secretly he'd always dreamed of a wife and family, but he never thought it would actually happen. Now here he was, a proud father of a beautiful baby girl and the husband of the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen.

Even if little Lucy didn't sleep, she was still the most beautiful baby girl he'd ever laid eyes on. The way she curled her tiny fingers around his, the giggle she'd let lose whenever he smiled at her, her peaceful face when she finally dozed off – everything about her served to wrap him even more around those little fingers.

The snow that had blanketed the area was slowly melting into a slushy mess, warmed by the morning sun and the warmer temperatures. Danny pulled his coat tighter around his body and shuffled toward the corpse still lying on the cold concrete. Sheldon Hawkes, the former M.E. and all-around smart guy, was bent over the body, checking something that Danny couldn't see. Stella and Mac talked quietly with Flack about ten feet away, their hushed tones signaling that it was an important conversation.

"Y'know," Danny called to let Hawkes know he was there, "I don't think he liked the weather much either."

Hawkes glanced up and grinned at his colleague. "The weather reciprocated. Body's half-frozen." He withdrew the thermometer in his hand from the body's abdomen. "Liver temp's below eighty degrees."

"So he's been out here for a while."

"At least since around midnight last night. Hey, how's Lindsay doing?"

Danny grinned proudly. "She's doin' real good. Lucy's gettin' big."

"It's only been two weeks."

"They grow up so fast."

Hawkes grinned. "Just wait until that boy shows up at your front door askin' to take her out on a date."

Danny scowled. "She's not dating 'til she's thirty. At least."

Footsteps interrupted Hawkes' comeback, and the two CSI's glanced up to see Flack trudging toward them. "I canvassed the neighborhood again, askin' if anyone knew him," Flack said as he approached them, accompanied by Stella and Mac. "Nobody recognized the photo, nobody knew the name."

Danny furrowed his brow. "So what's a stock broker doin' in a strange neighborhood around midnight?"

Mac shrugged his shoulders. "Just one of the many questions we've got to answer soon. Stella and I will take the body back to Sid for autopsy. Danny, you and Hawkes process the scene."

"Got it, Mac," Danny said.

"I've got guys checking every garbage can and storm drain for two blocks," Flack said as Mac and Stella walked off. "Maybe the guy tossed the gun."

Danny chuckled. "We'd be so lucky."

Flack grinned. "Hey, weirder things have happened. I'm going to head out to this address and talk to Mrs. Lombard. Maybe she knows somethin' about why he'd be in Manhattan."

"Good luck," Hawkes said with a grimace. Notifications were part of the job, but they were without a doubt the hardest part. No one liked having to tell a wife or kid that their husband or father wasn't coming home again.

"Thanks," Flack replied. They heard the roar of an engine and turned around just as Mac's Avalanche tore down the street, Stella's in a close second. "I guess that's my cue. Let you guys get back to your science geek stuff."

"Yeah, well this science geek stuff is gonna save your ass one day, Flack!" Danny shouted to Flack's back. The detective waved a hand in reply and then disappeared into the crowd of uniformed officers.

Releasing a sigh, Danny bent down and picked up his kit again. "Let's get to work," he said to Hawkes.

Hawkes moved to the far side of the crime scene and bent down, scouring the ground for some clue that might lead to a killer. Unless it was a revolver, the weapon should've left shell casings somewhere in the vicinity of the body, given that it was a fairly close range shot. But no gold glinted in the morning sun anywhere in the area.

_Damn_, he cursed quietly. "Hey, the guy policed his brass," Hawkes called over his shoulder in Danny's direction. "This guy's smart."

Meanwhile, Danny slowly walked toward the apartment building, scanning the ground as he walked. More snow had fallen overnight after the estimated time of death, so footprints were out. Gunshot wounds typically didn't result in other people getting injured, and he didn't see a sign of blood from any donors other than the dead man.

Suddenly something by the lamppost caught his eye.

He bent down and squinted his blue eyes behind his glasses. Pulling tweezers from his belt, he carefully grasped the small white object and slowly lifted it from its resting place.

"Boom!" he shouted. "C'mere!"

Hawkes was at his side within seconds, kneeling down in the frozen slush. Danny held up his tweezers to let his colleague take a look. "Looks like a cigarette," Hawkes observed.

Danny sniffed it. "Smells like one too. Just the butt."

"Could be our killer's."

"Could be." Danny pulled out an evidence envelope and carefully slipped the cigarette inside. "One way to find out."

*****

Sid Hammerback had been an M.E. for many years. He'd seen nearly every type of blunt-force wound, sharp-force wound, illness, poisoning, accident, strangling, hanging, bludgeoning, beating, and gunshot wound that exists on the face of the earth.

But there was something about this case that puzzled him.

And when he was puzzled, he liked to rest his elbow on the autopsy table, put his chin in his hands, and stare at the body until he figured it out.

That position was exactly how Mac and Stella found him when they pulled open the door to Autopsy. The older man leaned against the autopsy table beside Peter Lombard's body, staring at it.

"Sid," Stella said, exchanging an amused glance with Mac.

He didn't move.

"Sid," she said just a little bit louder.

Again, the ME didn't move a muscle.

"Sid!"

He jerked up and nearly fell over. "What? Huh?" His eyes fell on the two CSI's, who were struggling to hold back their laughter. The corners of his mouth twisted into a pout. "You should know better than to sneak up on a guy in deep concentration."

"What about when that guy might have some information that would help solve a homicide?" Mac retorted.

Sid thought about it for a moment before a hint of a smile appeared at the corners of his mouth. "Fair enough. What would you like to know about our dead stock broker here?"

"The beginning seems like a good place to start."

"Okay." Sid lifted his glasses to the bridge of his nose and fastened them with a click. "I'm amazed that this guy hasn't dropped from lung cancer yet. His lungs were as black as night. 'Course, some guys get lucky. My uncle Paul wasn't one of those. Pack a week, and he still got cancer."

"And this has something to do with cause of death how?" Mac asked, raising an eyebrow at the ME.

"Okay, okay. Cause of death was exsanguination. Both bullets pierced the aortic arch."

Mac's eyebrows went up. "That's an impressive shot. One would be lucky, two is skill."

"Just like it takes skill to extract the bullets from such a difficult place in the body cavity. Fortunately, you have a medical examiner with just that kind of skill." He pulled out a small cup with two bullets inside and handed it to Stella.

Stella grinned as she held the cup to the light. "Well, thank God for you, Sid. Looks like a nine millimeter."

"Nice to know I'm appreciated."

Stella handed the cup to Mac, who also held it up to the light. "Stippling on the end," he said, frowning thoughtfully.

"Suggests a silencer."

"Explains why no one on the street heard anything. Nine millimeter rounds can be used in a number of different weapons. Automatic and semi-automatic."

"Doesn't narrow our search down very much, does it?"

Mac shrugged. "Makes things a little more fun. Anything else for us?"

"As a matter of fact, there is. I ran a tox screen on the vic's blood. Came up empty. But I did notice a strange stain on the shirt." He handed Stella two evidence bags with Lombard's clothes. "I also sent his phone to Adam for processing."

"What, you didn't run the test?" Stella asked, feigning hurt.

"Must I do everything around here? God, you ask for autopsies and CAT scans, and I'm only one guy…"

"Thank you, Sid," Mac interrupted, casting another amused glance in Stella's direction. "We got it from here." He turned to Stella and gently took the cup with the bullets from her. "Danny's working on a lead with something he found at the crime scene. I'll get these to Hawkes to run through IBIS. You get started on the clothes, and I'll catch up to you later."

"On it." She turned as if to leave, but she stopped suddenly and stared at the body.

"What?" Mac asked.

"I don't know. He just… I think I've seen him somewhere before."

"Where?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "I'm not sure. It's probably nothing. I'll get on those clothes." She turned on her heel and disappeared through the doors, leaving Mac and Sid to stare curiously after her.

*****

Stella pulled a pair of rubber gloves over her long fingers as she stared at the pile of clothes on the table before her. She let the gloves go and cringed at the snap that sounded through the entire layout room. Fortunately, she was the only one in there at that moment.

"All right, Peter Lombard," she muttered to herself. "Let's see what you've got to tell me."

She reached into the large bag marked "Evidence" and pulled out the shirt that Sid took off his body. Carefully, she spread it out across the table, smoothing out the edges with a tender touch. Her fingers touched the two gaping holes on the left side, brushing over the brown blood stains before whispering across the powder marks residue around them. Picking up the ALS waiting patiently beside her, Stella lifted each arm, scanning front and back for anything that it would possibly pick up.

Nothing.

Her trained eyes suddenly noticed an odd-looking brown stain on the cuff of the right sleeve. She picked up a swab from the corner of the table and carefully took a sample. Then she cut off the tip of the swab, added the chemicals to it, and set it inside the mass-spectrometer for analysis.

Setting the shirt aside, she pulled out the black suit trousers from a separate bag and laid them out on the table. Again, she picked up the ALS and scanned them for trace elements – a bug, a spore, a piece of pollen could lead them to something important. She swabbed a dark stain on the thigh of one of the legs, cut off a piece of the swab, and prepared it for analysis by the gas chromatographer.

While the machine analyzed both swabs, she stuck her hand one by one into each of the pants pockets. Back pockets first… then the left front pocket… then the right…

Suddenly her questing fingers touched a piece of paper.

Frowning slightly, she slowly pulled it out and unfolded it.

"That expression on your face usually means you've found something."

Stella twisted her head to look in the direction of the familiar voice just in time to see Mac enter the layout room. He stopped beside her, and she grinned at him, ignoring the little flutter her heart made. "Maybe because I have. I found this receipt in his pants pocket."

Mac gently took it from her hand and held it up to the light. His brow furrowed as he studied it. "It's a bank receipt."

"Mmhmm. Looks like our vic withdrew three hundred bucks from his account the day of his murder."

He whistled softly. "That's a lot of cash to be carrying around."

"And we didn't find that much on the body."

"Or at the scene."

"So where's the money?"

Mac shrugged. "Isn't that the age-old question?"

The gas-chromatograph beeped at them, and Stella reached over to pick up the sheet from the printer. "Dark stain on the pants had traces of ethylene glycol, propylene glycol, aniline, and two-ethylhexanol."

Mac thought for a moment, searching his brain for those chemicals. "All components of ballpoint pen ink. Nothing groundbreaking there. He was a stock broker; one probably broke on his pants."

Suddenly the mass-spectrometer beeped at her, and she reached over to grab the print-out sitting next to the computer. Her eyebrows knit together in a curious expression as she scanned the document. "Well, this might be groundbreaking."

"What is it?"

She handed Mac the print-out. "Our vic had traces of THC on his shirtsleeve."

Mac's eyebrow went up. "Marijuana? Our vic had a habit?"

"If he did, his wife didn't know about it." The two CSI's whipped around as Flack came up behind them, flipping his notebook shut. "She says she thought he was working late, and they didn't know anybody on the Upper West Side."

"So, safe to assume if he did drugs, he didn't do them at home," Mac mused aloud.

"You think this was a drug buy gone bad?" Stella asked.

"Certainly wouldn't be the first time. Might explain the three hundred bucks he withdrew from his account."

Stella's eyebrow went up. "That'll buy a lot of drugs on the street."

"But I didn't tell you the good part," Flack interjected. "Lombard's wife says that he was involved in some pretty shady business at that firm of his."

"What kind of shady?" Mac inquired.

"Mob kind of shady."

Stella's delicate eyebrows rose. "As in the mafia?"

Flack nodded. "She said she'd promised she wouldn't say anything about it, but the mafia's been using his company for ages to funnel their illegal cash into something less illegal. I did some checking. The SEC's been investigating the company for the last six months for money laundering. A lot of big name mobsters have apparently funneled money through that company, who then turns around and invests it in legitimate business."

"Money laundering for the twenty-first century," Mac murmured.

"They're almost sure that the mob's involved, but they can't prove it."

"So what do you think?" Stella asked, turning to Mac. "Drug buy or mob hit?"

"I think we need to search his office."

*****

The brokerage firm of Jenkins, Oliver, and Marks was a relatively young company in comparison with its competitors. It had been established just fifteen years ago by James Jenkins, a Wall Street broker fed up with the way things normally worked in the financial district. So he moved off Wall Street to a new building on Liberty Street, still in the center of the district but not nearly as big as the other companies. His only goal was to create a personable, honest company interested in the welfare of its clients.

Unfortunately, he died five years later, leaving the business to his son Colin, an apple that fell very far indeed from the tree. Colin only picked up on one of his father's characteristics – to be personable. He threw honesty to the wayside, bringing in his other two partners to create one of the most notorious firms in the district for receiving not-quite-illegal clients with open arms. He wasn't very picky about either his clients or the other companies he did business with, which greatly appealed to the seedier underbelly of New York City. It wasn't a fact he advertized very much, and the firm received a lot of legitimate business. But what Mac was interested in was the not-quite-so-legitimate business, particularly as it related to Peter Lombard.

His office overlooked Liberty Street in the heart of the Financial District. Handsomely furnished, with cherry wood furniture and a plush leather chair, it was clear that it still paid to be a stock broker in New York City, even in one of the smaller firms. And the view from the forty-fourth floor wasn't half bad either.

Lombard's secretary was a petite, blonde young woman that fit the perfect stereotype of a ditzy secretary – overly made-up face, high-pitched voice, and a left eye that wouldn't stop winking at Flack. She brushed past him on her way to her tiny cubicle outside Lombard's spacious corner office, left eye fluttering at him again.

Flack glared after her and then turned to Mac, who was rifling through the filing cabinet at the other end of the office. "I swear, if she winks at me one more time, I'll toss her out that window."

"She thinks you're cute," Mac replied in his usual dry manner, biting his cheek to hold back a grin.

"My mother thinks I'm cute too. Maybe this girl's got some sort a' tick or somethin'."

Mac chuckled as the girl reentered the office and handed Flack about five sheets of paper. "I just can't believe he's dead," she said in her squeaky voice that sounded like fingernails scraping down a chalkboard. "How'd it happen?"

"He was shot on the Upper West Side last night, Ms…" Flack's voice trailed off, not remembering the girl's name. Although he was sure he'd never forget that annoying voice.

"Wilcox. Brenda Wilcox. Look, are you sure this is okay, you guys going through his stuff like this? I mean, Mr. Jenkins or Mr. Oliver walks by, they're not gonna be happy."

Mac glanced up from the file cabinet. "You can tell them that this is a murder investigation, and privilege doesn't extend to stock brokers. When was the last time you saw your boss?"

"Um… last night around eight, I think. He said he had some business dinner to go to. Didn't say where."

"Hey, Mac, you gotta take a look at this."

Mac shut the file cabinet drawer with a gloved hand and crossed the room in a few long strides to stand next to the younger detective. He peered over Flack's shoulder. "This the list of clients?"

"Yep. Look at some of these names. Peter Masucci of the Masucci crime family. Vladimir Losinsky, major player in the Russian mafia…"

"Stock broker for mobsters. There's a growth industry."

"Most of these guys have records as long as my arm. Carlos Jimenez, the guy responsible for bringing in most of the drugs on the Eastern Seaboard from the last decade…"

Mac pulled open the bottom drawer of the desk and moved some files aside. Suddenly he stopped. "I think we just found the source of the THC on his clothes." He pulled out a bag full of dark green, dried leaves. The sickly sweet smell of marijuana wafted through the room when he opened it. "I'd guess at least ten grams here."

Flack's eyebrow rose to his hairline. "Guess his wife didn't know him as well as she thought." He looked at the young secretary, who was still standing by the doorway looking very uncomfortable. "Did you know about this?"

She ran a quivering hand through her hair and sighed as she nodded. "I walked in on him once, and he made me swear not to tell. I couldn't really blame him, with the economy and his clients on his back. His wife was always pissed at him for staying late, Jenkins was always pissed at him for losing money. He just wanted to relax."

"Who was his connection?"

"I don't know. When he left last night, I heard him talking with some guy on the phone. I didn't catch his name. But he was supposed to meet him somewhere. I thought it was his business meeting."

"Looking for something stronger?" Mac asked, sliding the marijuana into an evidence bag.

"Maybe. I don't know. He had a big project for one of his clients coming up in the next couple of days, and he was running behind. In fact, the guy was in here just the other day, yellin' and screamin' at Peter that he was losing money and wanted it back. Peter swore he'd do the project and get the guy back his money."

"Who was this guy?"

"Andrea Marchetti."

Both of Flack's eyebrows went up this time. "Andrea Marchetti? Of the Marchetti crime family? _That_ Andrea Marchetti?"

She nodded. "He was one of Peter's biggest clients."

Flack caught Mac's eye and grinned. "This is gonna be fun."

**So are you all still interested? Reviews make me write faster!**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** Thank you guys so much for all the sweet reviews from last chapter, and the adds on favorites and story alerts. You're all amazing. I was a little disappointed in the response for the last chapter, though all the reviews were really great. The action is coming soon, and there will be some more Mac and Stella moments, as well as some of the other couples in the show. I'd definitely love to know what y'all think about this, whether it's good or bad. So please, let me know!

**Many thanks to Lily, who's been so patient and helpful over the last two or three months as I've been writing this.**

**Chapter 3**

Andrea Marchetti ran his family like the typical mob boss from the Prohibition heyday. He had a few guys as the big, beefy muscle, a couple of guys that ran the finances, and a couple more guys that dealt with his offshore interests. A small, but effective operation. Most of his guys were cousins or other distant relatives, since he was his father's only child. The ones that weren't related were loyal employees, handpicked by Marchetti himself.

He'd made his big money funneling cash from the sale of counterfeit watches into a legitimate jewelry business on the Upper East Side. The jeweler there had been a longtime friend of the family, and the Marchetti money had taken his business from the brink of bankruptcy to one of the more popular destinations for fine jewelry. No one asked questions and no one really cared.

Added to his money laundering were the six or so suspicious deaths that could've only served to benefit him. But any witnesses that happened to exist weren't about to come forward. His big, beefy musclemen had a reputation for knocking people around to keep them from talking. And the method worked. Marchetti, ruthless as he was, had never been convicted of a single crime to the great frustration of the assistant U.S. attorney.

He had just one weakness, however: His son, Joey. Joey Marchetti, aged twenty-eight, was Andrea's only son with his first wife. Much to his lieutenants' chagrin, Andrea gave his son quite a bit of leeway, especially in dealing with the family finances. Unfortunately, Joey wasn't quite as business-savvy as his father, and the Marchetti crime family was quickly losing both legitimate and illegitimate funds due to Joey's many indiscretions – liquor, gambling, women – and the rapidly failing economy. But no matter how hard his financiers pressed him, Andrea would just not give in. Yet.

The Marchetti home was a huge mansion just outside of Brooklyn. In the backyard were two swimming pools, fenced-in tennis courts, and about six acres of land with trees and horses and gazebos. Its white exterior gleamed in the noonday sun, shaded by two huge trees overshadowing the wrap-around porch. It had been in the Marchetti family since Andrea's father had immigrated to the United States from Italy just before World War II. The house held over fifty years of Marchetti history, its good side and bad side. And now, it served as the hub for all the family operations.

The pretty Hispanic maid showed Mac and Flack into a spacious, beautifully decorated parlor. Expensive-looking portraits hung over the massive marble fireplace, and the plush leather couch looked like it belonged in a designer magazine instead of something to sit on. Flack whistled softly and leaned over to Mac. "I think we're in the wrong profession."

"I guess crime really does pay," Mac whispered back.

Flack opened his mouth to retort, but suddenly loud voices echoed through the house, amplified by the high ceilings of the parlor. "I can't believe I raised such an idiot!" a deep voice boomed angrily.

"C'mon, Pops, I told you. I got it settled," the second voice pled loudly.

"The hell you did! You're gonna pay back every last cent you lost if it takes you the rest of your life. And the next time I find you gamblin' away your inheritance, you're gonna find a new meaning to the word 'pain.' You got that, Joey?"

The sound of a door slamming bounced off the high ceilings, and the two detectives exchanged a glance. This would definitely be interesting.

Steps clicked against the marble floor, and Andrea Marchetti himself appeared in the doorway to the parlor. A dapper, well-dressed man in his mid-fifties, Marchetti wore a mask of professionalism on his tanned, handsome face. The man was a master at dealing with the police, and if any emotions ran in his heart, he certainly didn't let them show.

"Detectives," he said with a congenial smile and a thick New York accent. As he entered the parlor, he extended his right hand to Mac first, then Flack. "Sorry 'bout that. Parenting can be murder."

"Yeah, I'm sure that's not the only thing," Flack shot back sardonically.

If Marchetti noticed the sarcasm, he didn't let on. "How can I help the NYPD?"

"We're investigating the murder of a friend of yours," Mac replied, giving Flack a warning glance.

"Oh?"

"Peter Lombard."

Mac watched closely as Marchetti's eyes widened in genuine shock. He'd been a detective long enough to know when someone was faking surprise, and Marchetti was definitely not faking. "Peter? He's dead?" the Italian whispered.

"Shot last night on the Upper West Side," Flack answered.

"Oh God." Marchetti ran a hand through his graying hair and sank into one of the leather armchairs across from the sofa. "He was my stock broker."

"We know. His secretary gave us your name. Along with some rather interesting information."

Marchetti's dark eyes narrowed. "Whad'ya mean by that?"

Flack shrugged. "She said you showed up a couple of days ago at the firm looking… oh, what's a good word… rather pissed at Lombard for losing your money."

"Seems like a good motive to me," Mac interjected quietly. "After all, you could lose this big house, your livelihood, your reputation."

"And given your rep for violence…" Flack let his voice trail off, his implication clear.

"Hold on just one moment," Marchetti interrupted, raising his hand. "Yeah, okay, I was pissed at him when I got my bank statement a coupla days ago. But that was before I found out about my idiot son's gambling habits with my money last night when one of his buddies calls and asks him to go play the ponies with him. Besides, Lombard promised me yesterday he had a project to get my money back. Some sure stocks. He'd never been wrong before, so why would I have doubted him then?"

"Just the same," Mac said. "Where were you between ten and midnight last night?"

If it were possible, Marchetti's eyes narrowed even more. "At a party, with about two hundred other people. On the East Side, Johnny Salvaggio's house. Joey and I were there until after midnight. Call him if you don't believe me."

"Oh, we'll check your alibi," Flack said, raising his eyebrows. "Just one more question. Can you account for the men that usually do your dirty work?"

Marchetti glared at Flack, his nostrils flaring and dark eyes glittering. "My men do nothin' unless I tell 'em to. Lombard might've been a moron, but not half the moron my son is. Now," he stood and buttoned his suit jacket at his abdomen, "if you have any more questions, I suggest you contact my attorney. Paulina will show you to the door."

As they stepped into the cool spring air and the door slammed shut behind them, Flack turned to Mac and grinned. "Told ya that would be fun."

*****

Mac rubbed his eyes tiredly and downed the last dregs of his coffee. He'd been back at the lab for about two hours, checking into the list they'd obtained from Lombard's office. Much to Mac's annoyance, his research was interrupted when Sinclair had called about thirty minutes later, asking for an update on the case and a time frame for the financial figures. It had taken all of Mac's years of training to refrain from telling the chief of detectives exactly where he could put that budget. After nearly three years of dealing with that politically-ambitious, waffling, ass-kissing son of a bitch, Mac had had just about enough.

From his office, he could see Stella's dark curly head bent over a microscope, and an unbidden smile appeared on his face. Smiling when he saw her seemed to be happening a lot lately, and for all his years in investigation, he couldn't for the life of him figure out why. Not to mention the dreams that had plagued him last night after his talk with her in her office – dreams that a supervisor should not have about one of his subordinates. She was his best friend, his confidant, his right-hand woman. She was off-limits, as far as he was concerned.

So why did his heart jump every time he saw her?

That hadn't happened with anyone since Claire. Not even with Peyton.

_I must be more exhausted than I thought_, he mused as he shook his head. Even if these thoughts had been bothering him for more than just today. But he wasn't about to acknowledge that.

A shrill ringing filled his office, breaking into his reverie, and he looked down at the BlackBerry on the corner of his desk. _Flack_. Reaching over, he picked it up and pressed a button. "Yeah, Don." He listened intently for a moment and then sighed. "Okay. You're sure?"

He heard a knock on his door, and Danny stuck his head into the office. Mac waved him in and turned back to his phone. "Okay. Thanks for checking on that. Sure." Exhaling deeply, he pressed another button on the phone and tossed it back to its former resting place.

"Bad news?" Danny asked, shoving his hands in his pockets.

"Flack checked on Marchetti's alibi for last night. At least ten people saw him and his 'moron' son there until well after midnight. And I highly doubt one of his cronies went rogue."

"What about those other guys on that list? Los-what's-his-face and the rest of 'em?"

A tiny smile played at the corner of Mac's mouth. "Losinsky's in federal prison in Virginia on a RICO charge. Five more are in state prisons on various other charges. Several were deported back to their home countries, and the rest of them lost money when the stock markets fell but not as much as Marchetti."

"So the mob angle's out?"

Mac sighed again and ran a hand through his hair. "No angle's out until the evidence says so. Finish the analysis on the cigarette?"

Danny nodded. "DNA came back to the vic. Guess he liked regular smokes as well as the stuff with the kick."

"What about the bullets?"

"Hawkes says there's still no match in IBIS, but it's only worked through half the database. Markings on the bullets are definitely consistent with a silencer, though."

Another knock sounded at his door, and Adam Ross pushed open the door, touch-screen laptop in hand. "So I finished running the cell phone Sid pulled from the vic's pocket, and I got good news and bad news."

"Start with the good news," Mac instructed, sinking into his desk chair.

Adam scratched at his scraggly auburn beard as he handed Mac the laptop. "Good news is that the vic got a ten-minute call from a 212 area code around eight o'clock. No other calls after that, either outgoing or incoming. I found an outgoing call to the same number about twelve hours before his death, lasted less than a minute."

Mac nodded. "Matches up with the secretary's story. What's the bad news?"

The younger lab tech cringed slightly. "Bad news is it came back to a disposable cell phone. Available everywhere, completely untraceable. I'm working on tracing some of the other recent calls, but so far they've come up to his wife and a couple of his coworkers."

Mac nodded again and pressed his lips together thoughtfully. "Keep working on those. Danny, tell Hawkes to run those bullets through some of the other databases. Let's see if we can't get any hits off those."

They nodded in unison and backed out the open door. Mac watched them go and sighed again, closing his eyes. This case was looking more difficult by the moment.

Suddenly he heard the familiar staccato click of high heels on the tile outside his office, and he opened his eyes just in time to see Stella breeze past a couple of lab techs and across the threshold, laptop in hand. A triumphant smile graced her lips, and Mac raised an eyebrow at her. "You're gonna absolutely love me for this, Mac."

His eyebrow went up even more. "Oh really?"

"I processed that bag of dope you found in Lombard's office. Two sets of prints on the outside." Stella could barely contain her excitement, and it brought a grin to Mac's face.

"And?"

"One set belonged to Peter Lombard."

His chin crinkled as he nodded thoughtfully. "Makes sense. It was his desk."

"Right, so I ran the other print through AFIS. No match."

This time both eyebrows went up as he glared at her playfully. "I still don't see the reason to love you for this."

Stella grinned. "Being the bright and intelligent CSI that I am, I ran the print through all our databases. And I got a hit. In the database for financial workers." She handed the laptop to Mac. "By New York law, all workers in the Financial District are required to be fingerprinted."

"And the grand winner is..." Mac scanned the screen. "John Haskins, stock broker with Jenkins, Oliver and Marks."

"Now, I can only think of two reasons for his prints to be on that bag of marijuana. Either he and Lombard met for some after-hours partying, or…"

"Or he handed the bag to Lombard himself," Mac finished. He stood and grabbed his jacket off the back of the chair. "Let's find out which one he is."

*****

A short, mousy-looking man with thin brown hair and thick glasses, John Haskins had worked for the stock firm of Jenkins, Oliver and Marks for nearly a decade. He was the best of the best, raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars for the company every quarter. His record had nary a blemish on it – not even a parking ticket. In fact, the last time he could remember getting in trouble was when he was sent to the principal's office in high school for toilet papering the girls' locker room. Downright admirable for a man who worked for a company that catered to less-than-legal clientele.

Of course, that just meant he'd never actually been caught.

Nevertheless, he was shocked – and awfully flustered – to find himself dragged downtown to a four-by-four interrogation room with three very stern-looking NYPD detectives staring at him from across a metal table.

"Drugs?" he rasped, his voice cracking a little. He coughed once, pretending to clear his throat. "I don't know anything about drugs at my company."

"Really?" Stella asked from her seat across from him, raising her eyebrows. "'Cause we talked to a couple of your colleagues, and they all pointed you out as their connection for a little… relaxation."

"What'sa matter?" Flack piped up from his corner. "Six-figure salary not big enough for you?"

Haskins shifted in his chair. "I don't know what you're talking about. They're mistaken."

The corner of Mac's mouth lifted slightly. "Well, unfortunately for you, evidence can't be mistaken." He tossed the manila folder in his hand onto the table and opened it to a photo of the marijuana. "We found your print on this bag of drugs."

Stella leaned forward in her chair. "Wanna try again?"

Swallowing hard, he turned his head to stare out of the metal grate covering the window behind him. The sun had just started its trek down the western horizon, and the shadows in the room elongated. Deep inside, he knew it would be useless to deny it now. It would just prolong the inevitable discovery of the stash of Ecstasy in his desk drawer at the office.

Finally he sighed and turned back to the detectives. "Okay, fine. I was Peter's connection. For marijuana. He got hooked several years ago, but it got worse when the stocks dropped last year."

Flack made a motion with his hand. "Keep talkin'."

"He came to me a couple of days ago. Said he was about to start a big project that could mean the end of his career, and he wanted something stronger."

"What kind of 'somethin' stronger'?" Mac asked.

"Crystal meth."

Stella and Mac exchanged glances. "I'd say that definitely qualifies as stronger," she murmured.

"I don't deal in that kind of stuff."

"So what'd you do?" Flack's voice dripped with sarcasm. "Look in the yellow pages under 'crystal meth dealer'?"

Haskins rolled his eyes. "I know a guy who knows a guy that deals in that kind of stuff."

"And who is this guy?"

He rubbed his forehead and sighed again. "My connection for the dope." Flack nodded before Haskins continued. "Said he didn't know the guy's name, but he could give some good deals. I gave the number to Peter and told him to call."

"Still got that number?" Mac asked.

"No," he shook his head. "The only copy I had I gave to Peter. I didn't want to get involved past that."

"Well, I got bad news for you, Mr. Haskins," Stella said, folding her hands across her chest. "You're already involved up to your neck."

"We're gonna need your connection's name and number," Flack said, shoving his hands in his pockets as he walked forward to stand behind Mac and Stella.

Haskins' eyes widened, and he shook his head emphatically. "No way. I don't know the guy's name, and all I have is a cell number that I call and leave a message when I need some. If I give it to you, I'm a dead man."

Stella shrugged her shoulder. "We could always go to the board with this bit of information. Think how it'll look when your bosses find out that you're the company drug connection."

"You can't do that."

"Actually, we can," Mac replied as he gathered up the photos into the manila folder. "Your boss has a right to know who's working for him."

"Or you could cooperate, and we could see about getting the DA to be nice to you." Flack shrugged. "Your choice."

Haskins stared at the three detectives for a long moment, not even bothering to blink. Either way, this ended badly for him. Finally he sighed and reached into his pocket. "I hope you know this means my life."

Stella smiled humorlessly at him. "It's in good hands." She motioned to the uniformed officer standing by the door. "Get him outta here."

"Wait, I thought you were going to put in a good word for me!" Haskins looked back and forth between the detectives, his eyes wide with panic as the uniformed officer grabbed his arm. "That's not fair!"

Mac shrugged. "Few things in life are."

*****

Night slowly fell on New York, draping it in a dark blanket. In stark contrast to the previous night, the skies were completely cloudless, finally showing some promise of spring. If it weren't for the city lights, millions of stars would have dotted the blackened heavens. A chilly wind blew in from the north, though not as stiff as the day before. Finally it looked like the citizens of the Big Apple would get some relief from the harsh winter.

Stella leaned back in her chair and stared out the window for the second night in a row, lost in her own thoughts. With the new case, she'd barely had time to think about how upset she was the night before. Something else drew her attention, something else bothered her. Something that she couldn't quite place a finger on.

The investigative part of her knew she'd seen Peter Lombard somewhere before. Maybe in some case buried in some box somewhere. Maybe in passing, on the street. Maybe at some gallery show she attended. It bothered her that she couldn't remember. It might have some important bearing on the case, some hidden meaning that would help them catch his murderer. As much as she couldn't stand what the sleazy broker had been doing, he still deserved some modicum of justice, and she wanted to do everything in her power to see that it was done.

A sudden knock at her door startled her, and she spun around to see Mac in the same position he'd been the night before, leaning against her doorway, sleeves rolled up his arms. "They finished processing Haskins," he announced, stepping into her office. "When they searched his office, they found a stash of Ecstasy hidden in his desk and another stash of marijuana in his file cabinet."

Stella huffed incredulously and shook her head. "Now that's just sad."

"He's being booked on criminal possession with intent to sell."

"And the deal?"

Mac shrugged. "That's up to the DA." He lowered his frame into one of the chairs across from her desk. "Something I've been meaning to ask you."

"Shoot."

"What did you mean when you said you recognized Lombard?"

Stella sighed and ran a hand across her forehead. "Oh, I don't know. For some reason he looks awfully familiar to me."

"Where've you seen him? A case, maybe?"

"Maybe. That's just it, Mac. I have absolutely no idea. I've been racking my brain since we caught this case, and I can't for the life of me figure it out."

Mac gave her a comforting smile. "You will. You always do."

"Maybe too late."

"Or maybe not. You never know what might trigger your memory. Memory's a funny thing like that."

Stella smiled at him softly. "You know, this is the second time in the last two days you've known exactly what to say to me."

He grinned. "I learned from the best."

Another knock at Stella's door made them both look up. This time, Hawkes occupied Mac's previously vacated position on the door frame, a touch-screen laptop in his hands. "Hey, Mac, I got a hit on that bullet from IBIS. You're gonna want to see this."

Mac reached out his hand and took the proffered laptop, studying it as Stella came around the desk to peer over his shoulder. The corners of his mouth twisted into a thoughtful frown. "Bullets with the same striae were found in three other homicides. One in New Jersey, one in Virginia, and one in Massachusetts."

Hawkes nodded. "I pulled the records from these cases. Each one was a double-tap to the chest, pierced the aortic arch."

Stella's eyes widened. "Same MO. Are we looking at a serial killer?"

Mac shook his head. "I doubt it. There's no ritualism, no signs left next to the body, no strange cuts or signs of torture. Serial killers traditionally have some sort of personal motive behind it, something that gives them release." He touched a finger to the laptop and brought up the photos Stella had taken of the body. "It takes a lot of skill with a weapon to hit the heart in this manner, especially with a silencer. This sort of skill and the other three homicides makes me think that maybe we're looking for some kind of contract killer."

"That's what the Feds seem to think," Hawkes said with a nod. "This guy left no evidence at any of the three crime scenes from before. No DNA, no fingerprints, no casings, and no sign that he'd ever been there. He's a virtual ghost."

Mac and Stella shared a meaningful glance, and Mac sighed. "Who's decided to haunt New York City."


	4. Chapter 4

Thank you guys so much for the great reviews in the last chapter! I hope you all enjoy this one too. Some of the scenes in this one were so much fun to write. Let me know what you think! Feedback = love!

**Special thanks** to Lily for being the best beta ever!

**Chapter 4**

A gray mist shrouded the city as dawn rose clear and cold over the East River. As the mercury in the thermometer dipped below forty degrees, New York awakened to the promise of spring. Gone was the snow from the previous day that had draped the city in white. In fact, the only reminders of the unseasonal snowfall were the little remnants of slush next to the skyscrapers, hidden from the warmer sun, and a few snowmen on the sidewalks.

Mac cursed softly and fiddled with the remote to the flatscreen monitors in the conference room. He'd been there for nearly an hour, getting it set up for the "round-table discussion" he liked to have with his team every once in a while. This case seemed to require one to ensure that each team member was brought up to speed on the new developments.

Now if the technology would just cooperate…

He swore again and smacked the remote against his palm.

"You know, if you play nice with it, you might get it to work."

He knew who the voice belonged to without even having to turn around. But he did anyway, a slight smile appearing on his face when he saw Stella standing in the doorway behind him. "I tried that method," he retorted. "Doesn't work."

Her grin lit up her entire face. "Needs a woman's touch. Here, let me see."

Begrudgingly he handed it over to her. She turned it over, took off the battery cover, pressed a finger to one of the batteries, and then punched the power button. Amazingly the monitors sprung to life, emitting a bright blue glow as they slowly warmed up.

Mac turned to Stella and shook his head incredulously. "Do you have any idea how long I've been trying to figure out how to get that damn thing to work?"

"Like I said, you needed a woman's touch." She studied his face for a moment, and he knew that she was seeing the dark circles under his eyes and the haggard look on his face. "How much sleep did you get last night?"

"Enough," he shot back, instantly regretting the harsh tone of his voice, though it didn't seem like she had noticed. But he knew she did. She noticed everything. So he sighed. "I'm sorry, Stella."

She smiled at him warmly. "Mac, we've worked together for ten years. I know you don't get sleep; you never have. But would it ever stop me from asking?"

He shook his head and returned her smile. "Probably not."

"Good answer." Stella pulled out a chair and sat down with a sigh. "We still need to do our breakfast thing, don't we?"

"Mmhmm," he replied, lowering himself into the chair next to her. "A nice, sit-down place."

Stella frowned playfully. "You know, the last time you said that to me, we ended up eating hot dogs at a dog show."

Mac scrunched up his nose. "Hot dogs for breakfast is just gross, Stel."

"Yeah, you just remember that."

He grinned and impulsively reached over and squeezed her hand. "After this case, we'll go to breakfast. I promise."

Stella smirked and maneuvered his hand to entwine their pinkies. "Pinkie swear?"

"What are you, five?"

Green eyes twinkling, she opened her mouth to retort, but she was cut off by Danny, Hawkes, and Adam all entering the conference room in quick succession. Mac slowly dropped her hand and mentally scolded himself for grabbing it in the first place. It was an impulsive move, one that happened without even a thought, and things like that were going to get him in trouble some day. Especially when it came to Stella.

Of course, he wasn't so sure he minded that.

Mac shook his head and pushed those thoughts from his mind as he took his place at the head of the table.

"All right," he said, opening the discussion. He pointed the remote at the flat-screen monitor beside him, and the screen sprang to life. A handsome young man lay in a pool of blood, two distinct gunshot wounds to the chest. "Two years ago, Alexandria, Virginia. Attorney Jason Oliver was found dead in his own home, two shots to the chest. No prints, no casings, and no other evidence were found at the scene."

"According to the police report," Hawkes piped up, "the authorities later found that Oliver owed large sums of money to some people connected with the Russian mob. But they could never prove that the mob was behind it."

With a nod, Mac pressed a button again, and the screen changed, this time displaying an older man in the middle of the woods. "Three months later, Camden, New Jersey. City councilman Alex Pugh went on a hunting trip and never came back. His body was found two days after his wife reported him missing. Same thing as with Oliver – two shots to the chest, no casings, no prints."

"What, is this guy some kind'a ghost?" Danny muttered.

Hawkes shrugged. "Sure seems like it."

Mac folded his arms across his chest. "Before his death, Pugh and three other councilmen were accused of taking kickbacks from some of the drug lords of the city in order to keep them from going to jail. Pugh was murdered two days before he was going to turn state's evidence against the other three."

"And once again, no one could prove they hired a hitman to get rid of him," Stella interjected.

"Right," Mac confirmed with a nod. "But after his death, the state had to drop the prosecution against the other three councilmen since there was no evidence to sustain a conviction."

Adam leaned back in his chair. "Sounds like motive to me."

"Which isn't enough to keep an arrest. The councilmen walked."

Stella huffed. "Talk about convenient."

Mac pressed the button on his remote a third time and another young man appeared on the screen, lying in what looked like an alley. "And finally, Shaun Riley, Boston. Irish bartender with reported connections to the IRA. Found dead a year ago in an alley on Boston's west side. Two holes in his chest, no other evidence."

"Why wait so long between killings?" Hawkes mused aloud. "A year's a long time with no influx of cash."

"Maybe he was laying low," Stella hypothesized. "Or had some kind of medical thing that laid him up."

"And maybe we stick to the evidence as it comes in," Mac interjected, giving Stella a glance. "Won't do us any good in court to guess."

"So does this open the mob angle back up?" Danny asked as Hawkes conceded with a nod.

"No angle's closed until the evidence says it is. But for now, the drugs are the most solid lead we have." Mac glanced at Adam across the table. "Did you trace that number we got from Haskins?"

Adam made a face as he sat up in his chair. "Yeah, and I'm beginnin' to think people watch way too many crime shows. Came back to another disposable cell. I managed to track down the store that sold it, but without a time frame, there's no way we could find out who bought one just by going through credit card receipts."

Danny groaned. "This case seems to have more dead ends than my neighborhood."

"The one solid lead we have is Haskins," Stella mused aloud.

"Then we press him," Mac said, crossing his arms. "And we press him until he cracks."

*****

The breath rushed out of Haskins in a _whoosh_ as he tumbled into a chair in the four-by-four interview room. Flack quickly righted the chair and leaned down, his face within six inches of the sweating stock broker.

"Hey, that's police brutality," Haskins protested, summoning up what little strength he had left after twenty-four hours in County. He gestured to Mac, who stood in the corner with his arms crossed over his chest. "You saw it!"

"Saw what?" Mac asked calmly.

"Frankly, I don't give a crap about your police brutality crap. Ain't no one who does." Flack leaned in more, watching Haskins cringe. "I don't think you're bein' completely truthful with me. And I don't like it when people lie to me."

"I told you the truth, I swear!"

Mac shook his head and stepped forward. "I don't think so. That phone number you gave us came back to a disposable cell."

"That's not my fault!"

"No, it's not," Mac conceded. He shoved the phone taken from Haskins' pocket at booking across the table at him. "But you're gonna fix it."

"Call him," Flack hissed. "Call him and set up a meet."

Haskins' brown eyes widened, and he shook his head vehemently. "No way. I can't do that!"

Mac shook his head and sat down at the table across from the stock broker. "You don't seem to understand the gravity of the situation." He took a picture from the manila folder and set it right in front of Haskins' eyes, watching as the man slowly crumbled at the sight of the gruesome crime photo. "Your friend was murdered two days ago. See that?" He jabbed a finger at the bullet holes in Lombard's chest. "Two nine-millimeter slugs ripped through his heart. Peter Lombard slowly and painfully bled to death, gasping for air as the life leaked out of him."

"I – I can't…" Haskins whispered.

"You have to." Mac leaned forward slightly in his chair. "You're the one lead we have to catching the guy that did this to your colleague, your friend. This guy you know may help us bring his killer to justice."

Haskins chewed his lip for a moment thoughtfully, then shook his head. "I can't. I'll lose my family, my job, my livelihood."

Flack stood up with a sigh and glanced at Mac. "Okay. If you're so hell-bent on self-preservation, why don't we put a call in to Colin Jenkins?"

"Wait, that wasn't part of our deal!"

"New circumstances, new deal. You either set the meet up for this afternoon, or I pull out my phone and tell your boss that you're dealin' drugs outta the office."

"That's blackmail," Haskins protested weakly. He would break soon.

Flack shrugged. "It's investigation."

Haskins ran a hand through his thin brown hair and sighed. "I usually just leave him a message, and he calls me back later."

"We got time," Mac said coldly.

Flack shoved the phone closer to Haskins, looking at him expectantly with his stern blue eyes. "Call him."

He glanced back and forth between the detectives for just a moment, as if he was sizing up his options. Finally he gave a resigned sigh and picked up the phone in front of him.

*****

That afternoon on the Lower East Side was warm and sunny. The locals wandered the streets, enjoying the more spring-like temperatures that had finally descended on the city. This side of town was traditionally seedy, although it had gradually become safer during the early 1990's thanks largely to the work of special task forces of the NYPD. But even now, fifteen years later, the drug dealers and pimps still did their business down by the river, despite the hard work of the police department to shut them down. Generally speaking, they could get away with their crimes down there because the locals didn't pay attention and no tourists ventured to the riverbanks.

Which was exactly why they'd chosen this particular part of the East Village to do their sting.

In the passenger seat of Flack's unmarked police car, Danny carefully sipped his scalding coffee. Flack stuffed the last of a bean and cheese burrito in his mouth, keeping one ocean-colored eye on the increasingly nervous man across the street. "I don't know if he's gonna make it through this thing," the detective murmured.

Danny shrugged. "He kind'a looks a little green."

"Let's just hope he manages to make the buy. If not, we're completely screwed."

"Yeah, we're sort'a running out of evidence."

Suddenly Haskins' voice sounded through their earbuds, interrupting the conversation. "Hey, guys, I don't think he's gonna show."

"Just relax, Mr. Haskins," Flack replied into the microphone hidden in his wristwatch. "It's gonna be fine."

"Easy for you to say," the stock broker snapped. "You're in the car."

Flack chuckled softly as he tossed the burrito wrapper into the back of the car. "I don't think I've seen a guy so freaked out on a sting."

"Maybe he'll quit being such a moron."

"Doubt it." Flack checked his watch. "Should be showin' up soon."

Danny cocked an eyebrow at his friend. "Since when have you known drug dealers to be punctual?"

Flack thought about it for a moment and shrugged. "Good point." Flack watched as his friend yawned and rubbed his eyes. "Man, you look like crap."

He looked over at his friend, who was staring at him with a twinkle in those eyes. "Thanks, pal."

"Any time."

"Here he comes!"

Haskins' panicked voice had quickly silenced whatever retort was on the tip of Danny's tongue, and both detectives sat straight up. A lone, African-American young man strolled toward the nervous broker, dressed in a leather jacket and blue jeans. His dark hair hung in dreadlocks over his forehead, and he sported a tattoo of a snake winding around his neck.

"All right, stay calm, Mr. Haskins," Flack said into the radio. "Act natural."

"Think he can do it?"

Flack turned to Danny, who stared at him expectantly. He shrugged. "He'd better."

They watched as the young man sauntered up to Haskins. A smile spread over his face. "Hey, hey!" he said. He wrapped his arms around the older man, like they'd been friends for years.

"Hey," Haskins replied, forcing out a smile. Even his voice sounded forced; the two detectives hoped the younger man wouldn't notice.

Tattoo stepped back, sliding his hands into the pockets of his jeans nonchalantly. "You got it?"

"Yeah, I got it." Haskins slipped a hand into his own pockets, sliding out thin roll of dollar bills. "Fifty bucks, just like you said. You got what I need?"

He chuckled, somehow finding that amusing. "Yeah, yeah I got what you need."

As he reached into his pocket, Danny and Flack simultaneously grabbed their door handles. "That's our cue," Danny said as they pushed the doors open. They stepped out of the car into the cool afternoon air, walking quickly toward the pair on the sidewalk.

Suddenly Tattoo glanced at them as they crossed the street. A look of panic crossed his face. "Damn it, he's gonna run," Flack murmured to his partner.

"Hey, we just wanna talk to you!" Danny shouted desperately.

Not that it would make a bit of difference. Tattoo turned on his heel and dashed down the street. Cursing softly, Danny sprinted after him, ignoring the confused look on Haskins' face as he ran past.

Flack rushed back to the car and yanked the door open. "Never make things easy," he muttered as he inserted the key into the ignition. The car roared to life, and he barely got the door closed before he burned rubber after Danny, tires squealing in protest.

Danny willed his legs to run faster, huffing and puffing for oxygen. The drug dealer skidded around the corner toward Suffolk Street, almost bowling over a kid in the process. For a moment, Danny thought that he was gaining on the guy. The jackass was fast, but he was faster.

Suddenly the suspect turned into an alley, and Danny sped up. His footsteps pounded against the pavement, shoes slapping the asphalt as he got closer and closer to the fleeing suspect. He was so close, in fact, that he almost didn't see the trashbag the kid tossed over his shoulder at him.

"Shit!" he shouted, leaping over it as it rolled toward him.

But then he missed the second one. It rolled under his feet, and Danny hit the pavement with a loud _oof_ as the wind rushed out of him.

The dealer, for his part, breathed a sigh of relief as he saw the blond cop crash to the ground. He was home free.

Or so he thought.

He was so busy looking over his shoulder at Danny that he didn't notice the silver unmarked car pull up at the alley's exit.

_Smack!_

He crashed into the hood of the car and rolled across it, dropping to the ground on the other side with a loud grunt. Flack jumped out of the car and grabbed the drug dealer by the jacket. He ignored the pained groan as he jerked the kid's hands behind his back and cuffed them.

Hearing footsteps, Flack looked up to see Danny jog toward him slowly, holding his right side. "You okay?" he called.

Danny winced and nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine." Flack hauled the kid off the ground, and Danny gave him an approving look. "Nice work."

Flack shoved the kid toward the car. "Moron didn't know you're s'posed to look both ways before crossin' the street."

*****

It was evening when Flack pushed open the door to the interrogation room at the precinct, manila file folder in hand. The sun had begun setting through the metal grate over the window. The shadows formed odd shapes on the linoleum floor.

His mouth quickly twisted into a professional, stern frown when he saw the kid at the table. The dealer slouched in his chair in front of the metal table. His eyes narrowed haughtily as he looked up at Flack. Flack returned his glare, not saying a word. Guys like the kid in front of him usually didn't get on his good side.

"Man, this whole thing is whack," the kid finally said after several long moments of silence. "I wasn't doin' nothin'."

"Yeah, 'cause the eight ounces of coke in your pocket wasn't 'doin' nothin'. Your 'doin' nothin' cracked two of my buddy's ribs." Flack shook his head and lowered his long, lanky frame into the seat across from the kid. He flipped open the manila folder. "Jeffrey Porter, AKA 'Snake'. Barely twenty-two and already four arrests? Possession, two counts of possession with intent to sell, assault…"

"Hey, man, I was acquitted on the assault charge."

"And now we got you for another count of possession." He shook his head again. "Three strikes, you're out, pal. 'Course, that won't matter for you now."

Porter's eyes narrowed. "What the hell d'ya mean?"

"Man, I see kids like you every day. Couldn't even graduate high school, think they'll make their money sellin' some dope on the side. Think they'll live it large, have everything they want. Might get busted a coupla times here and there, but they don't care. Figure they'll get lost in the system. But then somethin' happens, and next thing they know, they're spendin' the rest of their lives behind bars."

The kid laughed, sounding just a little more nervous than he had before. "Dude, you're freakin' nuts. I got no clue what you're talkin' 'bout."

"Maybe this'll refresh your memory." Flack pulled out the crime scene photo of Lombard's dead body and slammed it onto the table, the crash echoing through the room. "Pal, you just upped the ante to murder."

Porter's eyes went wide. This cop wasn't the usual narcos he was used to working with. No, his eyes were hard. He was pissed. Way more pissed than he should be. "Murder?" His voice came out as a squeak.

"Yeah, that's right. Murder." Flack shoved the picture toward him. "Take a good look, buddy. This guy's dead, and he ain't comin' back."

"Whoa, I didn't do no murder! Y'gotta believe me! I don't even know who got whacked!" His panicked eyes were wide. In all his years dealing crack and whatever else he could get his hands on, he'd never seen a dead body.

Flack leaned back in his chair and shrugged. "Maybe you didn't do it. But I think you had somethin' to do with it, and that's gonna get you twenty-five to life in Sing-Sing, pal."

"I didn't! I swear, I didn't!"

"Your buddy Haskins told you he had a friend who wanted meth. You gave him somebody's number. I wanna know who that guy was!"

"I don't know!"

"I don't believe you!"

"Man, he came to _me_!"

Flack stopped cold, staring at the kid in front of him. "Say again?"

"He came up to me on the street. Said he'd heard I had some clients in the Financial District. Said that if Haskins came up to me askin' for some stuff for a buddy, I ask for the guy's name and if it's a certain name, I give him the number. Next thing I knew, Haskins was callin' askin' if I had somethin' stronger than weed for a buddy."

"What was his buddy's name?"

"I don't know… Peter somethin'."

Flack digested that information slowly and then asked, "How do I get in touch with this guy?"

"I don't know! I haven't seen him since that day!"

Flack rubbed his hand across the back of his neck and sighed. He couldn't afford another dead end. "You at least remember what the guy looked like."

"Man, I got an ei-dec-dic memory. Maybe two hundred pounds, short hair."

Flack pushed his chair back, not even bothering to correct him. "Okay, I'm gonna get a sketch artist in here. He'll give us a sketch of what you saw."

"Hey, man, don't I get a deal or somethin'? For helpin' the cops."

Flack sighed again, the corner of his mouth quirking slightly. Then he left, not saying a word.

*****

The apartment complex in Queens smelled like rats. Actually, it smelled like a combination of dead rats and other things that were more identifiable but much more disgusting. Obviously, it had been a few years since an exterminator of any kind had visited the complex on the northern side of the borough. And who could blame them? This particular place had a knack for attracting the slimy underbelly of the city – drug dealers, prostitutes, runaways, gang members.

He climbed the stairs slowly, ignoring the glares of the drug dealers and the interested looks of the prostitutes. Neither really bothered him at this point. He was a professional, trained by the best to maintain the utmost focus.

"Hey baby," one of the girls said as he walked by. "Lookin' for a good time?"

Slowly, deliberately he turned, sizing her up with an analytical eye. She wore a lot of make-up, probably to conceal the fact that she was much younger than eighteen. With her body build, he guessed more like sixteen, maybe even fifteen. Times were hard everywhere. "No, I'm not," he said simply.

"You sure?" she pressed. "You look like you've had a very hard day. Maybe I can relieve some of that… tension."

The corner of his mouth turned up just a little, and he shook his head. "I'm fine."

She rolled her eyes and backed off. She'd been doing this long enough to know when to stop. Some guys just weren't interested, oddly enough.

He continued up the steps until he reached the third floor landing. He slid a piece of paper out of his pocket and held it up to the dim light. Apartment 304.

The door was on the left of the stairwell, a sad-looking wooden door with the 4 hanging upside down. He lifted his hand and gently rapped on it with his knuckles.

"Coming!" a voice inside shouted.

Sure enough, within a few seconds, he heard the distinct sounds of a chain sliding back. The door swung open, revealing a young, haggard-looking man on the other side. His eyes were glazed and his hands shook. His hair was long and greasy, and he had tiny scars in the crook of his elbows. The stranger leaned against the doorframe. "You the one that called?"

He nodded just once.

The man stepped aside, silently signaling him to step into the apartment. The living room wasn't in much better shape than its owner. It was covered in grime, and in the walls he heard the distinctive rustling of termites. The man leaned against the arm of the beat-up couch and picked up the cigarette smoldering in the ash tray. "So this message you say you have for me… couldn't be over the phone?"

"Nope," he shook his head and slid his hands into his pocket, fingering the automatic hidden in his jacket pocket. "Sorry."

"Nah, it's just I usually don't get messages in person, if you know what I mean." The junkie took a long drag on the cigarette. He blew out the smoke slowly. "All right then. Let's have it."

He immediately slid the weapon out, finger on the trigger, silencer pointed directly at the stunned junkie. "Justice is served," he whispered. Then he squeezed the trigger twice.


	5. Chapter 5

**Many thanks** to Lily for help with this chapter... particularly with writing Sid!

**Chapter 5**

Mac was very familiar with the stench of death. That coppery smell of blood, that scent that wafted through the air and clung to anything and everything within its reach. That sickly smell of flesh that had ceased to grow. And then there was the face; that horrified expression of a man who realized too late that this moment would be his last, those eyes frozen in a permanent expression of panic. He'd seen that face, smelled that smell so many times in his time on earth. In Beirut, on September 11, in his years on the police force, such sights and smells had become all too common in his life.

And here they were again.

They'd been at dinner when the call from Flack came in – right in the middle of a deli sandwich from the place down the street from the lab. With Danny on his back with two broken ribs and Hawkes on his day off, the scene was left to him and Stella. Not that he would consider complaining. Working with her, being with her always made him happy. His leg still tingled from the sensation of Stella's leg brushing up against his, purely by accident of course. Because of the case, he hadn't had time to dissect the way she'd made him feel recently, and it was driving him crazy.

"Downstairs neighbor heard a loud thud about four hours ago." Flack's voice interrupted Mac's internal musings. He and Stella followed the younger detective up the stairs of that crummy Queens apartment building. "Didn't think much of it until he saw blood seeping through his floorboards."

"Yeah, I bet that got his attention," Stella muttered to Mac.

"Got a name for our vic?" Mac inquired.

Flack shook his head as his foot hit the landing. "Nope. For now, he's just John Doe. Tried to call the super, but he's apparently on a six-month vacation to Bora-Bora. Can't say I blame him, with this dump."

Stella sighed as she shifted the weight of her case. "Great."

"Hey, detective," a uniformed officer stopped Flack just as Mac and Stella reached the third floor landing, "this girl says she saw a guy go into the victim's apartment this evening."

Flack's blue eyes sized up the heavily made-up, very young prostitute with a defiant stance. Her dark eyes darted this way and that, obviously nervous about being surrounded by so many cops. He nodded at the uniformed cop. "Yeah, okay. Crime scene's over there." He pulled out his notepad and strode toward the girl, leaving Mac and Stella to their work.

The two CSI's followed the line of Flack's gesture to the open door on the left side of the stairwell. It had already been taped off, a line of yellow crime scene tape stretched from one side of the doorframe to the other. A uniformed officer stood guard next to it, keeping back the curious onlookers, who despite their possibly illegal activities couldn't stay away from the excitement.

Mac glanced at Stella, who gave him a crooked smile and a one-shoulder shrug. He led them both to the apartment. They both nodded at the officer as they passed him then one by one ducked under the tape.

Both CSI's stared at the scene before them. The victim lay in the center of the floor, a pool of dark crimson blood surrounding his chest. The apartment itself was small and disgustingly dirty. Every once in a while, they could hear something scurrying in the walls, and Stella suppressed a shiver. "This place gives me the creeps."

"We've processed worse."

"Not by much." Stella pulled out her flashlight and shone the beam on the doorframe. "No sign of forced entry."

"Meaning this guy let his killer in."

Her beam traveled to the doorknob. A single black fiber was caught between the doorknob and the wood of the door. "Got a black fiber here." She took out her tweezers and carefully extracted it. Then she slid it into a small manila envelope marked "evidence". She quickly and methodically dusted the doorknob for prints and frowned. "No prints on the doorknob."

Mac set his case down and bent down next to the victim. The man was laying face up, dark eyes frozen in a mixture of surprise and panic. His dark hair was long and stringy, as if he hadn't seen a barber or a bottle of shampoo in a long time. In his chest were two distinct gunshot wounds, blood still seeping from them. "Two gunshot wounds to the chest. Looks like he bled out."

"Coincidence?"

"Maybe." He looked at her meaningfully as she bent down next to him. "Or maybe not." Mac grabbed the guy's arm and tried to lift it. It went up, but he felt the beginnings of resistance. "Rigor's just setting in."

"Matches the downstairs neighbor's story about hearing the thud four hours ago." Stella moved her flashlight beam to the man's arm. Several small dots marred the skin. "We got a junkie. Track marks."

"See if you can find a stash somewhere."

Stella nodded and straightened with a groan. She crossed the room to the kitchen and began rifling through the cabinets. "No stash, but I found a cell phone." She held up a little, inexpensive-looking phone that had been sitting on the counter.

Mac rolled the victim over. He slid a hand into every one of his pockets, trying to find an ID. When he came up empty, he pulled a scanner from his kit. Lifting the man's hand again, he pressed the index finger to the scanner.

As it scanned the database, he heard Stella move to the area with the bed behind him. After just a couple of minutes, he heard her say, "Hey Mac." He turned around to see her holding up a small plastic bag with a grainy white substance inside. "I think I found the stash."

"Test it."

She pulled a drug testing kit out of her case and took a sample of the substance. She mixed the chemicals with practiced precision. Immediately, one of the tests turned blue. "We got heroin."

He opened his mouth to respond, but the scanner beeped at him, signaling it had found a match. "Willie Perkins. Possession, possession with intent, DUI…"

"Run-of-the-mill junkie, basically," Stella replied, turning to look at him.

"Basically."

She placed her hands on her hips and stared at the dead man. "So what's a run-of-the-mill junkie got to do with Peter Lombard?"

"I got another question." Mac gestured around the apartment. "If you take away the dirty apartment, the drugs, and replace it with a West Side street, what do you get?"

Stella shook her head and glanced at Mac. "Déjà vu."

As Mac and Stella processed the crime scene, Flack stood outside the apartment, talking to the girl that looked way too young to be out on her own. He motioned to the badge on his hip. "Detective Flack, NYPD. What's your name?"

She gave him a cheeky smile. "A girl that could certainly give you a good time if you're lookin' for one."

Flack shrugged. "I prefer hockey games, thanks. Now if you wanna make this hard, I can have this officer take you to the precinct and fingerprint you. But then we're gonna have to make it official and everything."

"Fine, fine," she huffed. "Candy."

"Candy. Is that your real name?" She glared at him and he held up his hands. "Whatever. Tell me what you saw."

"Dude came up these stairs and went straight into Willie's apartment."

"Willie?"

"Yeah. He's the guy that lives there. Kinda quiet, not really all that interesting." She rolled her eyes, as if that were common knowledge.

"Was this guy 'interesting'?"

"Thought so at first."

"But he turned you down."

She shrugged. "You win some, you lose some. It happens."

Flack shook his head, definitely amused at this girl. "What time was that?"

"I don't know. Maybe around seven or so."

"You see him come back out?"

"Nah. I had… other engagements, if you know what I mean."

Flack certainly did. "Can you describe this guy?"

She thought for a minute. "Average height, maybe. Not particularly muscle-y or anything… kinda average there. Really short hair – you know, buzz cut. And it was dark, I think. His eyes were really weird, though."

"Weird how?"

"Cold. Like no feeling behind them, y'know? It was just really strange. And they were really close together. I mean, I've seen some nasty people before, but this guy… somethin' crazy about him. Oh, and his nose was a little crooked, like it had been broken before."

Flack reached into his pocket and pulled out the sketch from the dealer he'd gotten earlier that day. Unfolding it, he showed it to the girl. "This him?"

She studied it for a moment, eyes roaming over the page. Finally she nodded. "Yeah, that's him."

Flack nodded and stuffed the paper back into his pocket. "Thanks."

He turned on his heel, nodding at the uniformed officer standing nearby, and headed toward the crime scene. He stopped on his side of the crime scene tape. Mac and Stella were busy printing the scene, getting their dust everywhere. "One of the girls saw our mystery man come into this apartment right around the time of death."

Mac and Stella both stopped and looked up at Flack. Then they glanced at each other, carrying on an entire conversation with a look. "Did you get a name?" Mac asked finally.

"Nope. But she ID'd him from the sketch."

"So these cases are definitely connected somehow."

"String theory again?" Flack asked with a lopsided grin.

Mac lifted an eyebrow curiously.

"Hey, after spending so many years hanging out with you geeks, I pick up a thing or two."

The corners of Mac's lips lifted into a small smile as he replaced the lid on the fingerprint dust canister. He looked over at his partner. She was staring intently at the dead man, her green eyes narrowed in a curious expression. "Stella? Something wrong?"

She didn't answer, as if she didn't hear him.

"Stel."

Finally she looked up, looking slightly bamboozled. "Huh?"

"Are you okay?"

Slowly the haunted look on her face faded, and she nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine." Mac narrowed his eyes at her, and she smiled. But even then the smile looked completely false. "I'm fine, Mac. Let's get this guy back to the morgue, huh?

He watched as she picked up her case and walked out the door. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Flack stare at him in wonderment, but he ignored it. She'd just lied to him. And he didn't know why.

*****

Sid Hammerback yawned as he replaced the scalpel on the instrument tray next to him. When he first started working at the ME's office, he'd thought that eventually he'd get used to early morning calls for autopsies or test results. Or, at least, that was what he'd told his wife. But he never did. He never got used to hearing the phone next to his bed chirp at him in its shrill voice. He never got used to having his REM cycle destruct just as he managed to fall asleep.

But, even though he never quite got used to it, he got up every time one of those calls came in, drove into Manhattan, put on his scrubs, and picked up his scalpel. Being an ME was what he loved. He loved being a part of solving these crimes, of seeing the bad guys brought to justice.

However, even his love of his job couldn't stop the yawns. Unfortunately, as he was mid-yawn, the door slid open with a _whoosh_ and Mac stepped into the brightly lit morgue. He stopped for a moment and stared at the medical examiner, the corner of his mouth tipping up slightly. "Tired, Sid?"

Sid finished his yawn and smiled at Mac. "Nope, not at all." But as Mac walked forward, Sid could tell that the CSI certainly was exhausted. As a matter of fact, he'd never seen Mac look so tired. The dark circles under his eyes were normal, but the blue-gray irises held something in them that Sid couldn't quite place. He appeared worried about something.

As usual, Mac noticed Sid staring at him and cocked an eyebrow. "What?"

He shook his head and smiled at the weary CSI. "Nothing." He skirted around the only occupied table in the room and fastened his glasses over his nose. "I'm assuming you want to know about our latest tenant here?"

"The sooner the better," Mac mumbled.

Sid looked at him curiously. "Everything okay?"

Mac looked up to meet Sid's eyes and took a deep breath. "Yeah, everything's fine."

Even Sid could tell that was a lie. But he let it slide and turned back to his patient. "Well, I can tell you both how he lived _and_ how he died." He lifted the man's arm, and Mac bent down for a closer look. "See those marks?"

"Yeah, Stella pointed those out at the crime scene."

"Well, this one's new," he pointed to a bright red dot at the center of the arm.

"So he was high when he was shot."

"High as a kite." Sid handed Mac a sheet of paper. "Large amounts of heroin in his system. I suspect he was also a methamphetamine user, judging from the sores on his face and arms."

Mac nodded. "Long term effects of methamphetamine use include hallucinations, sometimes resulting in formication."

"Users try to get off whatever it is and wind up severely injuring themselves. My guess is this guy was a lifetime user."

"How about how he died?"

Sid pointed a gloved finger toward the two holes in the man's chest. "Well, your cause of death was pretty simple, but remarkably familiar. Two gunshots to the chest, pierced the aortic arch."

"Just like before?"

"Just like before," Sid nodded. "And, just like before, due to the level of skill I've attained in my years as a medical examiner, I managed to get the rounds for you. They're on that table."

Mac reached over and picked up the canister. He held it up to the light. "Looks like two nine millimeter slugs. Stippling on the round suggests a silencer." He shook his head and set them down.

"Looks like your two homicides are connected."

"Ballistics'll have to confirm, but it sure looks like it." Mac sighed and rubbed his forehead. "So they're probably connected in death. I'd like to know how they're connected in life." He pulled out his phone and looked at it for a minute then replaced it, as if he'd changed his mind.

Sid watched him with burgeoning curiosity. "Hey, Mac, can I ask you something?"

"Shoot."

"You look a little worried about something." He watched as Mac's face flushed just a little, and he barely managed to stifle a grin. "Or someone, maybe?" Secretly he hoped it was Stella. Those two had been dancing around each other for years, and everyone at the lab knew it. He'd seen the way Mac looked at Stella and even the way Stella looked at Mac. Whatever this case was, maybe it was the kind of catalyst they needed.

The corners of Mac's mouth lifted slightly, and he shook his head as he turned on his heel. "Get some sleep, Sid," he called over his shoulder.

As the doors slid shut behind the CSI, Sid smiled to himself. Something was definitely going on there.

*****

Stella flopped into the chair behind her desk in her darkened office. She rubbed her forehead tiredly and sighed. It had been a long couple of days. She'd talked to Lindsay briefly, checking up on Danny after his run-in with the drug dealer. Lindsay said that he was doing well and was really loving the painkillers they put him on. Stella had smiled at that. How very like Danny.

Her smile quickly faded, however, as she looked at the open folders on her desk. Pictures of both crime scenes were scattered across the wood and glass desktop. From where she was sitting, she could see Lombard's bloodied shirt, the pool of crimson slowly spreading from his lifeless body, his eyes staring vacantly up at her. The eyes were what really bothered her.

As if he was accusing her, even in death, of incompetence.

She'd told Mac that she was doing research on the case in her office, which was true. But she left out the part about recognizing Perkins at the scene. Somewhere in the dark recesses of her memory, she knew she'd seen him before.

Now if she could just figure out where.

It was perfectly obvious that Perkins and Lombard were connected somehow, and she was connected to both of them. Maybe on the art scene, when she was with Frankie? She shook her head, immediately dismissing that thought. Perkins showed signs of long-term drug use, and while that wasn't uncommon on the art scene, she highly doubted he was much more than a petty dope dealer.

She picked up the pictures of Perkins and Lombard and held them up to the dim light. Mac had been right – their crime scenes were remarkably similar. No shell casings at either scene, no foreign DNA, and no prints. The only exception was the little black fiber on the doorknob of the apartment. Whoever did this was most definitely a pro.

Stella sighed again and leaned back in her chair. The look on Mac's face when she brushed him off had imprinted itself in her mind. He'd looked almost hurt. She felt a pang of guilt at the memory. She hated lying to him, although she'd done so in the past when she thought that he would pull her off a case. He'd pull her off this one if she was personally connected to it. And as much as she hated lying to him, she wanted to bring this guy to justice, whoever he was.

Releasing another sigh, she sat up and turned on the desktop computer next to her. She brought up a search engine and rested her fingers on the keyboard. She would find out her connection to this guy if it took all night.

*****

Though crime never really stopped in New York, the lab was virtually empty when Mac returned from the morgue. Night had deepened even more, and the lab was practically a ghost town. Adam was the only person in there, no doubt called in to help on another case.

Mac slipped his arms into a lab coat and donned a pair of gloves. He emptied the two bullets from Perkins onto the table next to the comparison microscope. Picking one of them up, he studied it, turning it over between his finger, brow furrowed intently. It was definitely a nine millimeter. Question was: Was it the same weapon that killed Peter Lombard.

Mac pushed his stool back and crossed the lab to an open box in the corner marked "CSI Case 00019885: Peter Lombard." He reached into the box and retrieved the bullets extracted from Peter Lombard. He studied them for a moment then went back to the microscope. With careful and trained precision, he placed the bullet from Lombard on one mount and the bullet from Perkins on the other.

Suddenly he sensed a strange presence next to him, and he glanced up to see Adam standing over him. The younger man shifted his weight nervously from foot to foot, and Mac suppressed a smile. "Something you need, Adam? Aren't you supposed to be running prints?"

"No… I mean… well… yes I am, but that's…" Adam took a deep breath and plunged ahead. "You're happy with my work, right, Boss?"

Mac frowned and nodded. "As of now, yes, I am."

"Well, y'know… I can do the comparison for you. But only if you want. I mean, you can do it yourself; I don't really care…"

"Adam," Mac interrupted, giving the young man a stern look. "I'm perfectly capable of performing my own tests."

"Oh, yeah, I knew that. I never meant to suggest –"

"I'm just confirming that our two vics were killed by the same weapon."

"Right." Adam pursed his lips and nodded. "I knew that."

"But if you really want to help, you can run this fiber through the GCMS." He handed Adam the envelope containing the fiber Stella found at the scene.

"On it, Boss." Adam snatched up the envelope and crossed to the microscope on the other side of the room.

More than a little amused, Mac peered into the microscope. He twisted the bullet on the right carefully until the lines on each side matched exactly. He sat back and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Six lands and grooves with a right twist."

Adam looked up from his microscope. "Match?"

"It's a match." Mac leaned back in his chair and sighed.

"Well, that's a good thing right?"

"Yeah, it's a good thing. We have the physical evidence to connect the two crimes."

"I'm sensing a 'but' here."

"A lot of weapons use nine millimeter ammo. Ruger P89, different types of Lugers, Glocks, Smith and Wesson… pretty wide-range weapon. If it was a revolver, that might explain why there weren't any casings at the scene. But he could've also picked up the casings as they were ejected from the weapon."

"So that leaves us where?"

"With two murders definitely connected by physical evidence and no clue what the weapon could possibly be." He tilted his chin in Adam's direction. "Finish with the fiber yet?"

"Yeah, wanna take a look?"

Mac stood and crossed the room in two strides. Adam stepped aside, giving Mac room to bend over the microscope. He fiddled with a couple of the knobs. "Looks thicker than your normal thread spool."

"That's what I thought too. So I turned it to good ol' GC Mass Spec." Adam clicked the mouse, bringing up a separate screen on the monitor. "It's Dacron fibers. Used in numerous kinds of stitching, but usually for the heavier cloths, like suede or leather."

He nodded thoughtfully and folded his arms over his chest. "A glove, maybe?"

"Could be."

"Every single print we lifted from that apartment came back to Perkins. So it's logical to assume that the killer wore gloves."

"If I were a killer, that's definitely what I'd do." Adam blanched at Mac's raised eyebrow. "I mean… not that I'd actually kill anyone, but…" he stammered.

"What about that phone we picked up from the scene?"

"I was just getting to that." Adam sighed gratefully and turned on his heel. He walked around the table where the cell phone sat plugged into another computer. He jostled the mouse a little, and the screen came to life. "Here's every incoming and outgoing call for the last month."

Mac scanned the screen. Then his eyebrows went up. "Does that number look familiar to you?" He pointed at the third number from the top.

Adam narrowed his eyes and thought for a moment. Suddenly his eyes flew open, and his jaw dropped. "Isn't that the untraceable number we pulled off Lombard's phone?"

"Appears to be that way." Mac flipped open the folder containing Lombard's autopsy and other records. He pulled out the trace Adam had done on Lombard's phone. "That's the same number."

"Weird."

He set the paper down on the table and thought for a moment. "So we have two guys killed with the same gun, with the same number incoming on both their phones."

"Coincidence?"

Mac shook his head and opened his mouth, but another voice cut him off.

"I don't think it is."

The familiar feminine voice made both men whirl around. Stella stood in the doorway to the lab, a file in her hands. But the look on her face nearly made Mac jump out of his chair and gather into his arms. Her green eyes were wide and her face was pale. He'd never seen her look like that before.

"What is it?" he asked.

"There's something I need to tell you, Mac." She paused for a moment and took a deep breath. "I recognized Perkins at the scene today."

His eyes widened as he stared at her. "And you didn't tell me?"

"I'm sorry, Mac, but I just… I couldn't. I had to figure out where I knew them from."

"Stel, this is the second victim –"

"I know," she interrupted him. "Just hear me out. I know how they're connected."

Mac gestured toward the screen. "Lombard and Perkins each received calls from the same number, and they were shot with the same gun."

"Yeah, I heard. But I know their connection before." She stopped and shifted her weight to her other foot, looking at him nervously.

"What is it?" he asked again, prodding her gently after a long moment of silence.

Her emerald-colored eyes connected with his blue-gray ones, and she inhaled deeply. "It's me."

* * *

**Thank you** so much for reviewing the last chapter, and for all the story alerts and favorites! I can't tell you how much a review in my inbox brightens my day. I tried to reply to everyone's, but if I missed you, know that it was most definitely appreciated and I'm sorry I missed the reply. I was going to wait until later to post this chapter, but I have a Literature midterm over Romanticism and Neoclassicism in less than an hour, and I'm sick of studying (wish me luck!) Hope you guys enjoy this chapter too! Please leave a review... let me know people are still reading this!


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N**: Wow, thank you all so much for the reviews for the last chapter! You blew me away! Reviews really are what keeps me going on this, and you completely exceeded my expectations. I'm sorry this is late... I was going to update yesterday, but the internet in my apartment went out and I just got it back today. Hopefully this chapter explains some of the questions y'all had. Hope you guys enjoy this chapter as well! More reviews I get, the faster I update! Next chapter is ready and waiting!

**Thanks** as always to Lily for being such a great beta. Thanks also to Moska, whose review I couldn't reply to. It was most definitely appreciated.

**Chapter 6**

A stifling silence fell over the lab like a heavy wet blanket. Mac and Adam gaped at her, mouths hanging wide open in an incredibly awkward expression. Both men were stunned to the point of catatonia. Stella fidgeted nervously, waiting for one of them to say something.

Adam was the first to recover. His jaw closed with a snap. His gaze flitted back and forth between his two bosses, growing more and more uncomfortable with the situation as every silent moment passed.

Finally Mac closed his mouth and tensed his jaw. His blue gaze hardened quickly, and his eyebrows knit together, wrinkling his brow. Stella knew that look. This definitely wasn't good.

"Adam." His voice was low and deep, tinged with enough anger to send chills down Stella's spine. "Give us a minute alone."

The lab tech was only too happy to comply. He immediately got up and strode toward the door, shooting Stella a silently sympathetic glance on his way out. Stella watched him go, suddenly feeling a little like an ant standing right under an elephant's outstretched foot.

As soon as he rounded the corner, Mac took a step closer to Stella. "You didn't tell me you recognized Perkins at the scene."

Stella flinched at the accusation in his voice. "I know. I didn't want to come to you with just a supposition, not until I had all the facts in. I knew I knew him from somewhere, I just didn't know where."

"You should've told me, Stella." The tone of his voice softened just a little, but still with a hint of anger lying under the surface. "We're a team. We work together, share everything. Everything you notice could be the break in the case we need."

"I know, and I'm sorry, Mac. I wanted to find out exactly what my connection with them was before I came to you."

"Do you trust me?"

The question caught her off guard, and she blinked at him. "What?"

He took a step closer to her until their toes touched. Unable to help herself, her breaths came in little short gasps that had nothing to do with the fact that she was about to get yelled at and everything to do with the warmth emanating from his proximity to her. "Do you trust me?"

Her eyes narrowed, and she stood up straight, staring at him right in the eyes. His blue irises smoldered, and for just a moment she wondered what exactly he was thinking about. "With my life, Mac."

Their eyes stayed connected for a long, long moment. Something that she just couldn't place was in those blue-gray orbs of his, something she hadn't seen from him before. Finally Mac sighed and looked away from her for a moment. She watched his expression carefully, particularly the line of his jaw, which was still clenched tightly. At last, after a long silent moment, his jaw relaxed. He looked back at her, and she breathed an internal sigh of relief when she saw that the fury in his eyes had subsided. "What'd you find?"

She smiled at him gratefully and leaned against the table, folding her arms across her chest. The last thing she wanted was something else to come between them. "Twelve years ago. I was working in Narcotics, my first job out of the academy."

He nodded. "I remember."

"One of my first cases was this pair of scumbags that was selling heroin out of Hell's Kitchen. They imported the heroin from Mexico by courier and sold it out of their apartment. Their dime bags had the logo of a scorpion on them."

"I think I remember hearing about that case. It would get distributed to dealers all around the city, right?"

Stella nodded. "And they were smart. They hid the drugs in special compartments under coolers of meat as they drove across the border."

"So the dogs would smell the meat, and the border guards would assume there wasn't anything there."

"Sadistically intelligent, huh?"

A slight smile quirked the corners of Mac's mouth. "Go on."

"My partner and I busted an accountant buying one of their dime bags in Greenwich Village. Guy was just a typical accountant, never been in trouble before, so we managed to flip him on where he bought it."

"Peter Lombard."

Stella nodded once. "Exactly. Lombard sang like a bird when we threatened to tell his wife - "

"Typical."

She grinned and continued, "So we started an undercover operation to get inside the organization."

"And did you?"

"For about a week. He gave us the address in Hell's Kitchen, so we had it under constant surveillance. Another narco detective, Dan Pollack, was the undercover. He got pictures of the goods and information on their couriers, their dealers in the city… the works."

Mac leaned back against the table across from her, folding his arms over his chest. "So what happened?"

Stella sighed and brushed a stray curl from her forehead. "Dan was convinced that if we went in, they'd fold."

"And they didn't."

"Not at all. Dan didn't know they were armed. So when we went in, one of them pulled a gun and started shooting. Dan got hit. He died a little later at the hospital. He had a wife and a baby, Mac."

Mac nodded silently, slowly absorbing her story. "And the two guys?"

Stella flipped her folder open and handed it to Mac. "Jeremy Krasinski and…"

"Willie Perkins."

She nodded. "Perkins started talking the minute they got him into interrogation, flipped on his partner. Ballistics confirmed that Krasinski's gun killed Dan, so they charged him with murder. Lombard, Perkins, my partner, and I all testified at his trial. They convicted him and sent him to Sing-Sing for twenty-five years."

"What about the couriers?"

"We gave the info about the couriers to the FBI and DEA. As far as I know, they were never caught."

"Maybe they came after Perkins and Lombard."

"Perkins, I can see. Lombard…" Stella shrugged. "Mac, Lombard was just a petty buyer. The only reason we used him was because he actually bought directly from those two guys. He wasn't much of anything. I doubt he even knew about the couriers."

"And since they both had matching bullets inside them, they were probably both killed for the same reason."

Stella nodded and folded her arms across her chest. "This is just too weird. I mean, I haven't thought about this case in years. Now all of the sudden, two of the witnesses in this case turn up dead."

Mac exhaled deeply and ran a hand over his face. "Too strange to be a coincidence. I want to talk to Jeremy Krasinski. I want answers from this guy, and I want them now."

*****

Sing-Sing Correctional Facility was located about thirty miles from Manhattan in the village of Ossining on the Hudson River. Probably one of the best-known prisons in the entire United States and capable of holding more than two thousand prisoners, terms such as "big house" and "sent up river" originated within its concrete walls. During the late nineteenth century to mid-twentieth century, the maximum security facility was responsible for more than six hundred executions by electric chair, including the infamous Rosenberg couple convicted of espionage during the Cold War and the con artist who sold the Brooklyn Bridge.

Over the years it had been turned into a virtual icon for New York State. But despite its controversial status as a historical site, it still housed prisoners convicted of some of the worst felonies under the law.

The warden, Julius Parker, led Mac and Flack through the maze of stark white corridors. A tall, good-looking man in his late fifties with a slight graying in his brown hair, Parker strode purposefully toward the one of the many interrogation rooms throughout the prison.

"Can you tell us a little about Krasinski?" Flack asked, his long legs easily keeping up with the warden's steps.

Parker glanced over his shoulder and shrugged. "No real problems with him. He's been almost a model prisoner. Works in the prison library, goes to his Narcotics Anonymous meetings every week. Never really gotten into much trouble."

"Any regular visitors?" Mac asked, shifting the file folder cradled in his left hand to his right.

"Yeah, he got that privilege a couple of years ago. I think his brother comes up occasionally. Also gets mail privileges like most of the other inmates here."

"Any others?"

The warden shook his head just as they stopped at a heavy gray door with bars across the window. "Nope. Guy sticks pretty much to himself. Kind of a smart son of a bitch in that way."

Flack folded his arms across his chest. "How's that?"

Parker shrugged his thin shoulders. "Keeps to himself, can't get into much trouble. We got the same kind of problems as most prisons: gangs, drugs, sex. As hard as we try, prisoners still find ways to screw things up. Far as I know, Krasinski hasn't been involved in any of that stuff. 'Course, the guy's here for another thirteen years, so he might just be biding his time." The door buzzed loudly, and he pushed it open.

The room was fairly large and similar to the interrogation rooms they were accustomed to at the precinct. On one side of the room was a large plexiglass window that looked into the hallway. Two guards stood next it, hands folded in front of them, keeping a practiced eye out for any kind of trouble. It was usually used for meetings with attorneys or detectives, so it was soundproof to protect confidentiality. The only furniture in the room was a metal table and a pair of chairs on either side of the table.

"Cozy," Flack muttered to Mac as the warden led them into the room.

"Krasinski should be here in just a minute," Parker said. "Just let my guys know whenever you're ready to leave."

Mac nodded and extended his hand, which the warden took politely. "Thank you, Warden."

Parker smiled slightly and shrugged his shoulder. "Any time, Detective." With that, he disappeared through the same door.

Within minutes, a loud buzzing sound filled the tiny room, and the door on the opposite side swung open. Two burly guards ushered in a thirty-ish man dressed in a bright orange jumpsuit. Handcuffs bound the man's wrists together in front of him. He regarded the two detectives with an intelligent gaze, his dark brown eyes sizing up both men. He was tall, nearly six feet, and thin, with wavy brown hair, high cheekbones, and an almost gauntly thin face.

The guards pushed him down into the seat and backed up to stand against the wall, looking like two gargoyles watching over some medieval cathedral. He slouched in the chair, eyes shifting back and forth between both men. "NYPD," he said in a rough, gravelly baritone. "To what do I owe the honor?"

Mac ignored the sarcasm dripping from the young man's voice. "I'm Detective Taylor, and this is Detective Flack. We have some questions we want to ask you."

"Fire away," Krasinski said, leaning back in his chair. "I got all the time in the world."

"Hey, if you want, we can make your time in here longer." Flack folded his hands over his chest and stared at the prisoner.

Krasinski's eyes narrowed. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"We're investigating a couple of murders in the city," Mac said, smoothly interjecting himself into the conversation before it got out of hand.

The younger man chuckled and shook his head. "And you think I had something to do with it? In case you haven't noticed, Detective, I'm not exactly in much of a position to commit a murder."

"We think you might know who would," Flack replied.

"And what makes you think that?"

Mac pulled out the crime scene photos of Perkins and Lombard and set them on the table in front of Krasinski. "They're a couple of old acquaintances of yours. I'm sure you remember Peter Lombard and Willie Perkins? Since they testified against you at your trial twelve years ago."

Krasinski raised an eyebrow. "Lombard and Perkins were murdered? When?"

"Lombard was killed two nights ago. Perkins died last night."

He ran a cuffed hand over his face and knit his brow. Both detectives watched him closely, looking for some sign of guilt. But obviously Krasinski was well-acquainted with police, and his expression remained the perfect poker face. "Well, I can't say I'm all that upset. They were both scum sons-of-bitches."

"What's that old sayin'?" Flack asked, glancing at Mac. "'Takes one to know one'?"

Krasinski slowly turned his head and stared at Flack for a long, silent moment. "But I didn't have anything to do with their deaths," he said, holding Flack's gaze. "In case you haven't noticed, I kind of had an airtight alibi."

"So how is it that you're the only person who benefited from both their deaths?"

"Coincidence," he replied with a shrug. "Look, am I glad they're dead? Hell, yeah. But really, their deaths don't do a thing for me except provide maybe a little karma. I'm here for the next thirteen years, regardless. Why would I jeopardize getting out?"

"Revenge is a powerful motive," Mac said quietly, raising an eyebrow at the younger man.

"I didn't kill them," Krasinski said, leaning forward in his chair. "I didn't know they were dead 'til you come knockin' at my cell." He twisted his head around and looked at the guards. "I'm done here."

The guards glanced at the two detectives. Mac nodded his head once. The guards grabbed Krasinski's arms and pulled him from the chair. That annoying buzz sounded through the room as they led him away, back to his holding cell.

Flack looked at his colleague and sighed. "What'dya think about that?"

Mac rubbed his chin thoughtfully and shook his head. He shifted his gaze to the younger man. "To tell you the truth, I have no idea."

*****

March afternoons in New York City were absolutely gorgeous. A new visitor to the city would've never known that just days ago, the sky had dumped six inches of snow on Manhattan. Not a cloud could be seen in the sapphire sky. A cool breeze whispered over the city, enough to dissipate the smell of car exhaust and construction but not enough to send pedestrians running after hats. Central Park hummed with activity as children and adults alike took advantage of the slowly improving weather forecast.

The quiet little café on the Upper West Side offered a beautiful patio to enjoy a nice cup of coffee on a warm afternoon. A few potted trees lined the short fence separating the tables and chairs from the busy sidewalk. Huge maroon umbrellas covered two of the five tables, reaching toward the sky and providing shade for those that wanted it.

On a pretty day like today, however, Stella wasn't particularly interested in shade. She sat at one of the tables in the direct sunlight, allowing the rays to gently warm her bare arms. She sipped on her cup of coffee, keeping one eye out for any crows that happened to be flying overhead. A shiver ran through her spine at the memory of that eyeball splashing into her coffee. Though she supposed it ended up being all right. That had been the first time in a long time she and Mac had talked without shouting at one another. It seemed like they'd fought more in the last six months than they had in their entire friendship.

She was grateful for Mac's friendship, of course. He'd been the one constant in her life for the last ten years. He was her best friend, the man she turned to for all the answers.

But the memory of him so close to her the other night, staring at her with those eyes of his, sent an entirely different shiver running through her. She meant it when she said that she trusted him with her life. Could trust and friendship really turn into something else? Maybe it could. She knew that the way he looked at her recently made her heart skip a beat. And she knew that wasn't supposed to happen with someone who was just a friend.

In many ways, she'd just resigned herself to not letting it happen. He was not only her friend, but her boss as well. And while Danny and Lindsay had basically blown the fraternization rules to hell a long time ago, it wasn't the same for a boss and a subordinate. There were protocols to follow, examples to set. If both heads of the lab decided to ignore the rules, what kind of precedent would that set for the rest of the lab?

She had just started to ponder over the answer to that question when a familiar voice said, "Man, I'd recognize that curly mop anywhere."

Stella jerked her head up, and a wide smile crossed her face when she saw who the owner of the voice was. "Well, if it isn't the man who taught me everything I know." She glanced at her watch and grinned. "And late, as usual."

Kenny Umber, Stella's former partner, returned her grin and held out his arms. "But you forgive me, right?"

She laughed and stood up to wrap her arms around his broad shoulders. "Don't have much of a choice, do I?"

A tall, burly man in his late forties, with thinning blonde hair and compassionate blue eyes, Umber pulled back and looked her up and down. Surprisingly, she didn't feel awkward at all. Not after riding in a patrol car with him for two years. And she knew that he was completely devoted to his wife of twenty years. "You haven't changed a bit, Stella."

"Well, thanks," she said with a cheeky grin. "A girl likes to hear she hasn't aged much. How're Nancy and the kids?"

He smiled proudly as he walked back to the table with her and lowered his big frame into the chair across from her. "They're just great. Matt's fifteen now. And Kelly's turning eleven this fall. They're with their mom, visiting her sister upstate."

Stella shook her head in wonderment. "Time sure does fly."

"That it does." He gestured at her with his coffee. "What about you? I hear you turned into some kind of lab rat or somethin'?"

Chuckling, she shook her head. "Something like that."

"I can see you doing that." At her skeptical look, he shrugged. "You were always a bit of a science nerd. Spouting off those random facts every time we made a bust."

Stella laughed. "You liked to hear the chemical makeup of antidepressants."

"Only 'cause it kept you from singing all the time." He grinned and shook his head. "You loved those show tunes."

"You did too. Admit it."

"Yeah, yeah, okay. Maybe I did." Umber took a sip of his coffee and set it down again, resting his forearms on the table. "Look, Stel, not that I'm not glad to see you again, but it's been - what? - five years since I last talked to you?"

Stella looked down guiltily, fingers playing with the lid of her coffee cup.

"And then you call me out of the blue this morning?"

"I'm sorry, Kenny," she replied quietly. "It's just… I'm in the middle of an investigation at the lab. It came back to an old case we worked."

Umber leaned forward, curiosity sparking in his eyes. "Which case?"

"Jeremy Krasinski."

His eyebrows went up as he stared at her for a moment. "That drug bust in Hell's Kitchen? The kid that killed Dan Pollack?" Stella nodded, and he exhaled deeply. "Stel, it's been almost fifteen years. What's the deal?"

Stella took a deep breath and brushed back a stray curl. "Two days ago, we found Peter Lombard shot to death on West Eighty-Sixth Street."

"Wasn't he a witness against Krasinski?"

She nodded. "And then last night, we found Willie Perkins dead in his apartment. He'd been shot too."

"Could be a coincidence."

"I don't think so," Stella shook her head. "I can't really give you any details, but we're pretty sure that their murders were committed by the same guy."

Umber sat back in his chair, quietly absorbing the news. A long moment of silence fell over the pair, broken only by the sound of the traffic zooming by. Finally, he took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "And you think this guy could be after me next?"

"I don't know, Kenny," she replied truthfully. "Maybe he is, maybe he isn't."

"I'm guessing you've talked to Krasinski."

She nodded again. "My partner went up to Sing-Sing to talk to him this morning. I haven't heard back from him yet. But if something comes of it, I'll let you know."

"And in the meantime?"

Stella looked at him meaningfully for a long moment. "Just watch your back, Kenny."

Umber returned her gaze, then tilted up his coffee cup for one last gulp. "You know, if he's going after witnesses for that case, he might come after you, Stella."

She looked at him silently and offered him a barely perceptible nod.

He got up from his chair, the legs raking against the pavement. "You better watch your back too."

Stella watched as he walked slowly toward the door. Suddenly she shouted, "Hey Kenny!" At the sound of her voice, he turned around, an eyebrow cocked questioningly at her. She smiled at him softly. "Good to see you again, pal."

A grin spread over his face, and he nodded at her. "You too, kiddo. You too."

*****

The night sky outside the conference room window was blacker than black, even with the thousands of city lights. Though the sky had been perfectly clear all day, clouds had slowly started to roll in throughout the late afternoon and early evening. While they had been heavy with snow just seventy-two hours prior, now they were laden with the promise of heavy rain showers.

The lab was oddly empty, even at this time of night. Hawkes had gone out for some dinner after processing a rape/homicide in Queens, and Adam was working quietly in the A/V lab, bouncing on the balls of his feet in time with the music on his iPod. A rare, peaceful silence enveloped the crime lab. Mac sat at the huge table in the center of the conference room, papers and photographs spread out around him.

At the sound of a knock on the glass door, Mac looked up, the corner of his mouth lifting slightly as he waved Stella into the room. "Hey," he said softly, giving her a smile.

"Hey," she returned. She sat down with a sigh on the sofa in front of him, looking at him with those intelligent green eyes. "How'd it go today?"

Mac sighed and ran a hand through his short hair. "He's a smug sonuvabitch, that's for sure."

"I could'a told you that," she countered with a grim smile.

"I don't know what it is about him, but something bothers me."

Stella's brow knit together curiously. "What?"

Mac pressed his lips into a thin line thoughtfully. "Why would he risk it?"

"Risk what?"

"Hiring a hitman and getting caught. Why risk it? I mean, he's got thirteen years left on his sentence, and according to the warden, he's been a model inmate for the last twelve years. Why would he blow his release on something like revenge?"

Stella shrugged. "You've said it yourself, Mac. Revenge is a powerful motive."

"But he's so close to just walking out of there."

"Maybe he's just an idiot."

Mac chuckled at that and sighed. "That's the only thing I'm sure about for this case."

"Well, for now, he's the one lead we've got to finding out who this guy is. Somehow he's got to be connected to the murders. And until we catch the killer, we've got to keep at it."

He nodded once and fidgeted nervously with a piece of paper on his desk. He'd been thinking about doing this for a long time, and he wasn't completely sure how she was going to react. Well, he had an idea, but it certainly wasn't pleasant. "Something else I wanted to talk to you about, Stel."

Her eyebrows went up again, and she patiently waited for him to continue.

Finally he took a deep breath and looked up at her, connecting with her gaze. "I want to put you in protective custody."

Immediately he saw that familiar, stubborn look appear in her eyes. "What?"

"I want to put you in protective custody."

Stella rose to her feet, curls tumbling over her shoulders as she shook her head. "I'm a big girl, Mac. I can take care of myself."

"I don't doubt that, but this guy's killing people connected to this case." The volume level of his voice rose steadily with every word he said. "And until we catch this guy, I think it's best for you to be where he can't get you."

"And how am I supposed to do my job then?" The pitch and decibels of her voice matched his, and he saw fire in her green eyes. She was about to give him hell again.

"It's not about doing your job, it's about keeping you safe!"

"I wanna catch this guy as bad as you do, but I'm not about to sit on the sidelines and watch."

"And I'm not about to let you walk out of here unprotected and completely vulnerable."

"Well, I appreciate the thought, Mac, but I'm a cop. I can take care of myself, and I don't need you babying me!"

"Don't make me pull rank on this one."

"It's the only way you're going to get me into custody, Mac." Her hands went to her hips, and she glared at him. "Now, if you don't mind, we have a killer to catch, so I'm going to go back into that lab and try to find some evidence to tell us who this guy is!"

She turned to march out of his door, and while he was tempted to just let her go, he couldn't. Something inside him made him call, "Wait, Stella."

She spun on her heel to face him, eyes still smoldering.

Mac sighed and touched his hand to his forehead, slowly collecting his thoughts. Just when he thought they were finally starting to get along again, this had to come up. Finally he opened his mouth to say something…

Until the window behind him exploded in a hailstorm of glass.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: **Thanks so much again for all the reviews and for the alerts and favorites! You guys made my week... seriously. I'm going to make this author's note short, since I'm at work, but I do want to say that parts of this chapter were my absolute favorite to write. I hope you guys enjoy this, and as always, please leave a review!

**Million thanks** as always to Lily for her help with this chapter... I was stuck on it for a long time, and I'd probably still be stuck without your help. Thanks also to Moska, who totally made my week with that review! You're the best!

* * *

**Chapter 7**

Sheldon Hawkes licked his lips in anticipation as he spread a hearty helping of mustard over his turkey sandwich. He hadn't had anything to eat all day, so when he'd finally returned from Queens he'd secured the evidence and left in search of something to eat. He was absolutely famished and in desperate need of a break from the lab. It had been a particularly difficult case to process. And the entire time, he'd been mulling over the Lombard murder. As he'd secured the evidence from Queens, Adam caught him up on all that was going on with the case – the most recent murder, Stella's connection to it, Mac's visit to Sing-Sing. Something about this case didn't sit right with Hawkes, particularly Stella's connection to it. She was one of his closest friends, and the thought of her being injured again knotted his stomach. He still remembered the haunted look in her eyes after Frankie.

As he added some lettuce to his sandwich, he checked his phone for the time. Danny had called on the way to the deli down the street from the lab, asking if he could join him for a bite. _Poor guy_, Hawkes thought. Danny was starting to go a little stir-crazy. He couldn't really blame him. Cracked ribs were extremely painful, as Hawkes had found out not too long ago after he'd been trapped on a diving expedition in the Hudson. He shuddered, recalling that sickening crunch of bone when the mast fell on him. It felt like a moose had been sitting on his chest every time he tried to breathe. And with a new baby in the house, lying flat on his back with his arm in a sling wasn't easy for Danny Messer.

Hawkes slid into one of the stools at the counter, setting the police radio he'd grabbed on the counter. This particular little deli was one of his favorite places to eat in Manhattan. It wasn't like many of the other delis – rundown, infested with bugs, not inspected since the Reagan administration. Instead, it was quaint and clean, with pictures of New York City cops and firefighters decorating the off-white walls. An American flag hung over the huge plate-glass bay window looking out onto the sidewalk. Along one wall were several cushioned booths, and the black-and-white Formica tables matched the countertop.

He pulled the glass of water sitting an arm's length away closer to him and took a quick sip. He didn't have much time to eat, because the longer the evidence sat there the more likely it was that anything he'd find would be degraded. Hopefully Danny would show up soon.

Suddenly the bell over the door tinkled merrily, as if it had read his mind. Danny limped slowly into the deli, allowing the glass door to slam shut behind him. Hawkes gave his friend a sympathetic look. Poor guy looked like he was in so much pain.

"How you doin'?" Danny said in feigned cheerfulness. Hawkes studied his colleague for a long moment. Danny had dressed comfortably for his injury, wearing sweatpants and an old New York Mets t-shirt, his right arm in a sling against his side to protect his ribs. But the skilled physician didn't miss the pained wince when Danny gingerly slid onto the stool next to him.

"Man, you look like hell," Hawkes observed for the second time in just as many days.

Danny snorted and glanced at his friend. "Gee, thanks." He waved down the young brunette waitress and ordered a bowl of soup and some water.

"How do they feel?"

"They hurt," Danny said simply, nodding at the waitress as she slid him his bowl of soup. "Lindsay keeps telling me I need to take it easy."

"Well, from my vast medical experience, I'd say she's right." Danny shot him a look, and Hawkes raised an eyebrow. "Dude, broken ribs are nothing to joke about."

Danny harrumphed and picked up the spoon next to him. "No jokin' here." Out of the corner of his eye, he barely caught a glimpse of a man with a big black bag sprinting past the deli. He was there and gone in a flash, and Danny narrowed his eyes thoughtfully.

Hawkes noticed and followed Danny's gaze. "What?"

"Thought I saw a guy with a bag run by." Danny shook his head and pushed his glasses farther up his nose. "Probably nothing."

"Everyone's in a hurry these days," Hawkes replied with a grin, just before he took a big bite of his sandwich.

*****

Glass clung to Mac's hair and clothing, scratching at his skin.

Slowly he raised his head off the floor, cautiously surveying the damage to the room with a wary eye on the shattered window at the other side of the room. The glass wall behind him that had enclosed the conference room had disappeared, carpeting the floor in shattered glass. Down the hall, he could hear the screams and shouts of his colleagues, yelling at one another, trying to figure out what happened.

And then he saw the gaping hole in the wall across the corridor, just beyond the shattered window. He knew instantly what it was.

Sniper.

Mac's Marine training kicked into high gear, his mind quickly formulating where the shot probably came from. The trajectory of the round would have probably had it coming from somewhere across the street. His eyes flickered over to where the window had once been. There were at least four tall buildings within his line of sight. And the sniper could've been in any one of them.

Suddenly someone groaned and shifted beneath him, and he looked down to see Stella on the floor under him, eyes closed, his body resting on top of hers. He remembered pulling her to the floor when the window shattered, shielding her from the sudden spray of glass. They'd fallen to the floor with an _oof_ with Mac's arms wrapped tightly around her, feeling her breath skating across his neck as he held her. Vaguely Mac recalled the sickening crack of her head smacking into the floor on their way down, and he grimaced.

Out of his peripheral vision, he spotted a uniformed guard running toward them, sidearm drawn. "Hey!" Mac shouted, sitting up so he could see. The guard skidded to a halt. "Across the street! Go!" The guard hurried off, and Mac returned his attention to Stella. There was no way he was leaving her there until he knew she was all right.

"Stella," he whispered. He gently patted her cheek with the palm of his hand, brushing his thumb over her smooth skin. A flashback suddenly hit him – bending over her, patting her cheek, feeling for a pulse, calling her name almost frantically. Except that time was in her apartment, not in the lab.

Mac shook that picture out of his head. "Stella," he called just a little louder.

Her green eyes suddenly fluttered open, and she drew a deep breath. Mac breathed a sigh of relief and let her slowly sit up, making sure she couldn't be seen from their position behind the table. He wrapped an arm around her waist, supporting her gently.

"Mac?" she murmured, glancing around the room.

"I'm here," he replied, keeping one hand on her face. "You hit your head."

Stella grimaced and touched the back of her head. "That explains the 'Stomp' routine in my skull." Her mouth dropped open when she noticed the hole in the plaster across from them. "Did…?"

"Yeah," he said quickly. "You're not hit, are you?"

"I- I don't think so," she answered, quickly taking stock of everything that was supposed to be there.

Mac's cell phone screamed at him, and he yanked it off his belt. "Taylor." He listened for a moment and softly swore under his breath. "Okay, thanks." He hung up the phone and looked at his partner. "Guy's gone. No sign of him." All of the sudden he noticed a streak of crimson running down Stella's arm. "Stel, you're bleeding."

Her face blanched as she looked down at the deep cut on her upper arm, and her green eyes clouded in pain. "Damn it," she muttered.

Mac spotted Adam sprinting past the door, and he shouted the tech's name. Adam slid to a stop outside the door, his eyes widening at the scattered glass all over the floor and the strip of scarlet making its way down Stella's arm. His face paled, and he seemed to be fixated on the cut marring Stella's skin.

"Adam," Mac said gently. Adam's head jerked up. His eyes connected with Mac's. "Adam, we need to get an ambulance here. Now."

The lab tech stared at Mac for a moment, not saying a word.

"Adam!" Mac's voice was a little harsher this time. "Call an ambulance! Now!"

Finally Adam comprehended, and he nodded, pulling out his cell phone.

Mac quickly unbuttoned his dress shirt, glancing at Stella to make sure she was still with him. Her eyes were slightly glazed, but she looked back at him with that same determined spark in her eye. "Can you walk?" he asked, ripping a piece of his shirt off and tying it tightly around her wound to staunch the flow of blood.

"Yeah," she replied, her voice trembling slightly. It sent a pang through Mac's heart. He'd only heard her voice shake like that a few times in the entire decade he'd known her.

His blue eyes connected with her green orbs, and he gave her a reassuring smile. Wrapping one arm around her slender waist and keeping the other hand pressed to her wound, he helped her to her feet. "Adam, walk behind me."

Adam complied immediately, moving to stand between Stella and the shattered window while flipping his phone shut. "Ambulance is on its way."

Mac nodded his understanding while pulling Stella closer into his side. Glass crunched loudly under their feet as they silently made their way to the elevator, reminiscent of the way the snow had crackled beneath Mac's steps just days before, at the beginning of what was quickly becoming a nightmare. Every second of the attack played back in his mind: pulling Stella to the ground, the feel of her breath on his skin and her body under his, those nightmare moments she was unconscious seeming like days. His jaw clenched. Whoever did this would pay a dear price.

*****

Danny leaned back in his stool with a groan, patting his stomach with his free hand. "Damn, that was good," he murmured, sighing contentedly. That chicken noodle soup, with the slices of celery and big chunks of carrots and chicken, had really hit the spot for him.

Hawkes chuckled and wiped some excess mustard off the corner of his mouth with a napkin. "C'mon, man, Lindsay's cooking can't be that bad."

"Nah, not at all. But all we got in the fridge is stuff from when she was goin' through all that crazy craving stage. I like pickles and everything, but a man can only take so much."

They shared a laugh, invariably ending in Danny groaning in pain and grabbing at his injured ribs. Hawkes grimaced sympathetically and put a gentle hand on his friend's shoulder. "You okay, Danno?"

Danny gritted his teeth together and nodded slowly. "Yeah. Just hurts like hell. Doc gave me some pills; guess I need to take some more when I get back." He looked up at his friend, curiosity in his blue eyes. "This how it felt when you cracked your ribs?"

"Pretty much. Felt like someone stabbed me every time I took a breath."

"That would be a good description." Danny relaxed just a little, keeping his hand at his side. "What helped?"

Hawkes thought for a minute, pressing his lips into a thin line. "Rest. Home-cooking. And those pain-killers are miracle-workers."

Danny grinned. "I fell in love with those all over again the first night."

As they shared a laugh, the radio on the counter beeped twice loudly. They glanced at each other, eyebrows raised in mirroring expressions.

"_All units," _the voice of the dispatcher intoned. _ "Shots fired. 1585 Broadway. Officers involved."_

Both their jaws dropped, and they looked at each other wide-eyed. "Oh my God," Danny murmured. "That's the lab."

Hawkes snatched the radio from the counter and yanked his coat off the back of his chair with a muttered curse. "Let's go," he said over his shoulder as he dashed toward the door.

Danny didn't need to be told twice.

*****

Blue and red lights danced off the steel and glass skyscrapers and the black asphalt of Broadway. Half a dozen marked police squad cars blocked off both ends of the street, erecting police barriers to keep out prying eyes. Two more unmarked cars idled nearby, providing extra security if needed. More than two dozen cops milled about the area. Some stood by the barriers, guarding the scene carefully. Others simply meandered about, looking like they were busy but not really doing much of anything.

Stella sat quietly in the back of the ambulance parked right next to the building. She mostly ignored the paramedic working on the deep laceration on her arm, though every once in a while it stung when he wrapped the bandage tighter. Her head ached from the drop-off in her adrenaline production and the severe whack to the back of her head she'd taken, feeling a little like Gene Kelly was tap-dancing inside her skull.

Her thoughts whirled. She could still hear the whine of the bullet passing right by her ear, buzzing angrily like a hundred furious hornets. She could still feel Mac's hand, dragging her down to the floor.

If he hadn't pulled her down…

She shuddered at that realization. She'd been literally centimeters from certain death. And she'd been so stubborn, so adamant about refusing Mac's offer of protection. But she hadn't thought that someone would actually come after _her_.

The sound of footsteps on the pavement reached her ears, and she looked up to see Mac slowly walking toward her. He was still clad in just his undershirt and trousers, but he carried his ruined dress shirt in his hands.

Finally he stopped just a couple of feet in front of her, and a smile that was almost shy crossed his face. "Hey," he murmured.

Stella gave him a small smile before replying, "Hey."

He looked at the paramedic, who was just finishing wrapping Stella's arm. "How does it look?"

The paramedic stripped off his gloves and tossed the excess bandage toward the back of the truck. "Not too bad. It's pretty deep, so you'll probably need stitches. And the hospital's gonna want to check out that lump on the back of your head. You might have a concussion."

She sighed and glanced at Mac. "I guess it's better than the alternative."

Mac's lips pressed together in a thin, thoughtful line. Finally he averted his gaze from Stella to the young paramedic, who was watching the exchange with great interest. "Can you give us a couple of minutes?"

The corner of the young man's mouth quirked up into a knowing smirk, and he jumped down from the back of the ambulance. "Sure. I could use some caffeine anyway."

Mac watched as the paramedic wandered off toward a coffee shop just outside the yellow police tape. Then he returned his gaze to Stella. They studied each other for a long, silent moment. There was something behind those blue eyes of his. Worry? Anger, maybe? Perhaps just a hint of relief? She wasn't completely sure.

At last his sigh broke the silence, and he stepped just a little closer to her. "How do you feel?"

Stella sighed and glanced down at her hands, playing with her scarred fingertips. "Alive," she whispered, before looking him in the eyes again. "Thanks to you."

He gave her a little half-smile. "Don't mention it."

"You saved my life, Mac."

"I seem to remember someone telling me once that it's what partners do." This time both corners of his mouth turned up into an actual smile, and Stella couldn't resist returning it.

"Thanks, Mac."

"You're welcome." He cocked his head to one side and pointed toward her with his chin. "Mind if I come up?"

Stella shook her head and slowly scooted over to make room for him beside her. Mac sat down on the tailgate next to her and pushed himself back so that his legs dangled over the side, brushing against hers every once in a while. For a moment, they surveyed their surroundings wordlessly. Sid and Adam stood off to the side, conversing quietly, and the other officers milling about the scene completely ignored Stella and Mac. For just a moment, they were alone.

"I'm sorry," Stella said in a quiet voice.

Mac looked at her sharply. "For what?"

"Well, for your shirt, for one."

He chuckled and held up the ragged pieces of his shirt. "I can always get a new one." His smile faded though, and she followed his gaze to her bloodstained shirt.

"I can always get a new one, too, Mac," she said softly.

Mac's jaw tightened, but he didn't say anything.

Stella sighed and caught his gaze again. "And I'm sorry for being stubborn and pig-headed earlier. I know you were just trying to help."

Mac paused for a moment to collect his thoughts. "It's only because I care about you, Stella," he replied softly. "I don't know what I'd do without you." His eyes steeled, becoming the color of flint in the low night light. "If it had been any closer…"

A loud screech from a set of tires shattered the moment, and they looked up just in time to see Flack's unmarked car come to a squealing halt. Immediately three doors were flung open, and Hawkes, Danny, and Flack leapt out of the car. Hastily they ducked under the crime scene tape – though Danny moved much more slowly than either of his two friends, still holding his right arm close to his side.

"What the hell happened?" Flack shouted, flinging his arms out as they strode toward the ambulance.

Hawkes looked at Stella worriedly. "Stel, you okay?"

"I'm fine," she replied quickly. "What're you doing here?"

"We heard about it on the police scanner," Danny answered, shifting the arm in the sling slightly.

"And you still haven't answered my question," Flack interrupted. "What the hell happened?"

None of them missed Mac's jaw tightening. "Sniper," he practically bit out the word.

Three sets of eyes widened. "Stel, you didn't –" Danny started, but Stella cut him off with a shake of her head.

"Flying glass." She gave Mac a meaningful look. "I'm okay."

"Did you see anything?" Hawkes asked.

Stella and Mac both shook their heads. "Happened too fast," Stella said. "I didn't know what had happened until I woke up."

"Woke up?" Flack's voice was immediately tinged with concern. "Stel…"

"I'm fine, Don," she interrupted him hastily. "I was just out for a couple of minutes. Don't worry about me."

Danny pushed his glasses up his nose and inquired, "Where'd it come from?"

"One of those four buildings." Mac gestured toward the set of buildings across the street from where they were. "Probably an empty office. Hawkes, grab Adam. I want to know where this guy was and how he got there."

"On it, Boss," Hawkes said with a nod before he spun on his heel and disappeared to find Adam.

"Danny," Mac turned toward the younger man, "go with Stella to the hospital. I don't want her left alone, you hear me?" Danny affirmed with a nod. "Flack, you're with me. Let's go."

"Wait, where're you going, Mac?" Stella protested as he jumped down from the back of the ambulance.

He looked at her for a long moment, his eyes burning with a fury she hadn't seen from him in a long time. It took her aback, and she almost pulled away from him instinctively. "To get answers," he finally replied. "Keys, Flack."

Flack handed them over without a word, exchanging glances with Stella. As Mac strode off toward Flack's car, with the detective on his heels, Stella stared after them. She'd never seen him that angry before, and she could only hope he wouldn't do something stupid.

*****

In all their years of friendship, Don Flack had never seen Mac so livid.

The CSI drove silently with his jaw clenched and his hands gripping the wheel so tightly his knuckles were white. Flack tried to get him to talk, about the case, about Reed Garrett, about anything. But Mac ignored him. The only time he even acknowledged Flack was in the car was when the detective asked where they were going. And then he'd responded with a short but effective glare. Flack realized then that it was best to back off.

So he sat back in the passenger seat and watched the city fly by. He had a few guesses as to why Mac was so angry, and most of them had to do with Stella sitting in the back of an ambulance clad in a blood-soaked shirt. The picture bothered him too. Stella was one of Flack's dearest friends. But it was always a little different with Stella and Mac, a little more intimate, a little closer.

Actually, Flack figured it was about time the two of them started realizing what they had. They were both so stubborn, so closed off that the attraction simmering between them never quite boiled over. He just wished they'd figured it out sooner, rather than messing around with other people.

Finally Flack saw some lights in the distance – lights of a small village and then some unusually bright floodlights a few miles to the west. His jaw dropped as he recognized the place.

Sing-Sing.

"Mac, why the hell are we at Sing-Sing?" he asked.

Mac didn't answer. He just stared straight ahead with that stony gaze, and Flack let out a deep sigh. Damn stubborn man. He had an idea why they were at Sing-Sing, but he didn't actually believe Mac would do that. Well, he _almost_ didn't believe it.

Until they stood inside that familiar four-by-four interrogation room with the plexiglass window and the metal furniture.

Flack fidgeted worriedly as he stood next to the door. Mac still hadn't said a word to him. In fact, the only time he'd heard him speak was when he flashed his badge at the guard and said they were there on official NYPD business. And then he'd spoken with short, clipped words. Mac Taylor was pissed off, and Flack wasn't sure that whatever was about to go down was going to be a pleasant encounter.

"Listen, Mac…" Flack's voice trailed off, but at Mac's glare, he quickly regained his nerve. "Look, I know you're pissed about Stel. I am too."

"I just wanna talk to him, Flack," Mac said, his voice calm but low. "I want answers."

Flack opened his mouth to respond, but that familiar buzzing sound filled the room. The door at the other end of the cubicle swung open. Two different guards escorted the shackled Krasinski into the room. A wide smile spread over the prisoner's face upon seeing the two detectives. "You guys must be racking up the miles on those squad cars." He flopped into one of the metal chairs. "Two visits in one day. What'd I do to warrant such attention from New York's finest?"

"You're the scum of the earth," Mac growled. Flack didn't like that tone.

Neither did Krasinski, apparently. "Look, if you ain't got anything else to say, I'm done here."

"We're done when I say we're done." Mac's voice was dangerously low, and the tension in the room was palpable. "Stella Bonasera."

Krasinski raised an eyebrow. "Now that name sounds a little familiar. Who knows? I did many a woman in my time."

Mac exploded.

He leaped across the room and grabbed Krasinski by the collar of his orange jumpsuit. The metal chair clattered to the floor. All Flack could do was watch helplessly as Mac slammed the convict against the wall, blue eyes blazing. "You son of a bitch," he growled, slamming Krasinski against the wall again, ignoring the pained groan he made.

The guards moved off the wall, hands on their nightsticks, but Flack shouted, "Hey, hey, hold up a sec!"

"This is police brutality," Krasinski choked out, his voice fearful.

"Stella Bonasera is my partner," Mac hissed dangerously. "Someone tried to kill her tonight."

"Mac," Flack warned, moving a little closer to his friend. He definitely didn't like where this was going.

The CSI ignored Flack, moving his face closer to Krasinski's until their noses were practically touching. "And when I find out – and I _will_ find out – who did this, they're gonna pay a very, very big price. Because there's no one else I care more about in this world. "

Mac removed one hand from the man's jumpsuit and grabbed his throat into a chokehold, his legs dangling about two inches off the floor. "I'm going to search every inch of your cell. If I find one shred of evidence that connects you to this crime, I'll make sure you never see the light of day again."

Krasinski opened his mouth and tried to draw a deep breath, but Mac's hand increased pressure on his trachea. "And I swear to you," Mac seethed, so low Flack had to strain to hear it, "if anything else happens to her, if one hair on her head is harmed…" He tightened his grip on Krasinski's neck, and the prisoner gasped for air. "I'll kill you. I swear, I'll kill you."

He released Krasinski, and the man fell to the floor, coughing, trying to get oxygen back into his lungs. Mac turned toward Flack, and the younger man stared at him, jaw slackened.

From the look in Mac's eyes, Don Flack knew he wasn't kidding.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N**: Thank you guys so much for the reviews from the last chapter! You're all absolutely amazing. Thanks as always to Lily for being the beta for this story!

**Chapter 8**

Adam stared silently at the gaping round hole in the plaster wall outside the conference room. It was almost surreal, hearing the glass explode, seeing the blood on Stella's arm…

She'd always been there for him. She'd been one of the first to visit him at the hospital after he'd been beaten by that Irish gang. When the deputy mayor had been murdered by his son, she'd made sure he was all right. The corners of his mouth turned up when he remembered sitting in front of the computer with her, looking up the names of their friends to see how many of each there were in New York City, that twinkle in her eyes and that bright smile on her face. There'd been only one Stella Bonasera. Only one.

Though he hadn't really been around for Frankie, he'd heard enough about it to know that it was hell for her. It had affected her for years. And then there was the ordeal with the AIDS scare. He'd had a front row seat for that one, and he remembered the dark circles under her eyes and the haggard look on her face.

Then this had to happen. To see beautiful, vibrant – he shook that thought from his head when he remembered she was also his boss – Stella with that strip of crimson dripping down her arm was almost too much.

After everything she'd been through, they'd almost lost her. Again.

A hand clapped his shoulder, and he jumped, startled. Adam whirled around wide-eyed.

"You okay there, Adam?" Hawkes said, an amused look on his face.

"Dude! Don't sneak up on me like that!" Adam snapped.

"Okay, okay," he replied, holding up his hands in surrender. "You ready to get started here?"

Adam nodded and set his case on the floor. He reached into the pocket of his vest and pulled out a pair of tweezers. With a sigh, he turned to the wall. "Stupid bullet," he muttered.

Hawkes, in the meantime, set up the high-powered laser he'd retrieved from the lab next door. He kicked the legs of the stand into place, the click barely audible even in the quiet room. He flipped on the high-intensity laser and sprayed it slowly to make it visible. The citron-colored beam glowed brightly in the low light, extending through the space where the windows used to be and disappearing into the night.

"Looks like a slightly downward, left-to-right trajectory," Hawkes remarked.

The lab tech didn't answer. He cursed softly as he carefully dug into the plaster for the round. "C'mon, c'mon," he muttered.

Finally, with one last twist, it came free. "Whad'dup!" he said triumphantly as he cautiously extracted the slug from the wall. Its nose was nearly completely flattened from its journey through two glass panes into the plaster wall, and he frowned. "Hey, this thing looks pretty beat up. Might not get straia off of it."

As he dropped it into a small container with a clatter, Hawkes rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I think I might have the trajectory though."

Gingerly he stepped into the conference room, glass crunching and crackling under his feet. Adam followed just as carefully, watching where he stepped. Hawkes' eyes traveled along the line of the beam as it cut through the night sky. "Got it," he said with a smile.

Adam leaned forward a little. "The Sirius Building."

"Given the trajectory, I think it came from somewhere between the thirty-sixth and the fortieth floors." Hawkes pointed toward one side of the building with his left hand. "Maybe on the north side of the building."

Adam nodded thoughtfully and glanced at Hawkes. "Guess we get to go office hunting."

*****

The hotel Danny took Stella to after she was released from the hospital was a relatively small place in Brooklyn. Though it wasn't exactly the Hilton, it was clean and quiet. And, most importantly, it was a place no one outside their circle of colleagues would know she was.

Stella slid her keycard into the door lock, and the heavy wooden door swung open silently. She stepped across the threshold into the room, surveying it carefully. It was small, but about as comfortable as a second-rate hotel room could be. Two double beds with floral, pink duvets sat in the middle of the room. A dresser with a television was against the wall, and the only other furniture in the room was a nightstand between the two beds with a lamp and an alarm clock on it. The walls were covered in off-white wallpaper and decorated with a pair of floral paintings over each bed. The two floor-length curtains on the other side were drawn shut, keeping prying eyes away from her.

"Not too bad, eh?" Danny asked from behind her. She turned around and smiled at him.

"I've stayed in worse," she stated with a shrug.

Danny's eyebrows went up, and she chuckled. "Oh yeah? When was that?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" she shot back.

He laughed and flipped on the hallway light. "Okay, okay."

Stella took another step into the room and looked around once again. Unconsciously she touched the bandage on her arm, her fingers rubbing against the rough gauze. She was ecstatic to be out of that hospital. Hospitals smelled too clean, had too many noises, had too much death and dying. Somehow she'd managed to convince the doctor that despite her head injury, she really was okay. Although, she sort of doubted that she'd really done the convincing, rather than the fifteen X-rays and CAT scans they'd done on her head.

Okay, maybe it wasn't exactly fifteen, but it definitely seemed like it.

She supposed she was actually pretty lucky to have just gotten away with just a minor concussion and twenty stitches. She still couldn't get the thought out of her mind that if it had just been a few inches over…

"You okay, Stel?"

Danny's voice startled her out of her thoughts, and she looked over at him. He was leaning against the dresser, looking at her with a curious expression in his eyes. She smiled. "Yeah. I'm fine." Stella paused for a moment, taking a deep breath. "Thanks for staying with me at the hospital, Danny."

"No sweat, Stel," he replied with a wave of his free hand and a grin. His grin faded suddenly, and the expression in his eyes grew serious. "I would've stayed with you even if Mac hadn't told me to. You know that, right?"

His words touched her deeply, and she smiled and nodded. "Thanks, Danny."

"And, for what it's worth…" he sighed, looking off before he returned his gaze to her. "I'm glad you're okay."

Stella's smile widened, and she stepped forward to lay a chaste kiss on his cheek. "That means a lot to me, Danny."

He grinned and blushed lightly. With another sigh, he pushed his body off the dresser and straightened. "Listen, I gotta head out, but you got two detectives downstairs and a couple of unis outside. You need anything, you just yell. Me 'n Lindsay are gonna head to your place, pick up a few things you might need, then head back. 'Kay?"

She nodded, turning the corner of her mouth up into a half-smile. "Give my love to Lindsay and Lucy, okay?"

"Of course. Be back soon." He gave her another smile, then turned and sauntered out the door.

With a soft click, the heavy door closed behind her friend, effectively locking her into the room. Her prison. Sure, it didn't have bars on the windows and the door wasn't locked, but it felt like a prison.

Setting her phone down on the nightstand, she flopped down on one of the beds, covering her eyes with her good arm, attempting to block out the throbbing in her head. But it didn't work. Instead, every time she closed her eyes, she heard the high-pitched whine of the bullet screaming past her ear, saw the floor rush up on her as Mac pulled her down, felt the glass rip into her skin.

She released a frustrated sigh and rubbed her forehead with her free hand. This hadn't been her first hellish situation, and it probably wouldn't be her last. She'd beaten her psycho ex-boyfriend, an AIDS scare, an obsessed stalker, a fire at her apartment, and a foreign diplomat-cum-smuggler. Surely she could beat another attack on her life. Even if it was getting a little ridiculous.

For the twentieth time in two hours, she wished Mac would call. Part of her wondered what exactly he was doing. That look on his face when he left made her incredibly nervous. She'd never seen him quite so angry. And that hopelessly romantic part of her wouldn't let it go. Was he angry over the attack on her? Or was it because he'd almost been in the cross fire? A tinge of hope welled up in her heart that it had been because he was concerned about her. In the ambulance, he'd said that he cared for her and he didn't know what he'd do without her. But was it in a more-than-friends capacity?

She sighed again. Maybe they were doomed to do this insane dance around each other for the rest of their lives. She couldn't deny the way she'd felt about him for a long time. Not after he'd saved her life. Not after the way he'd looked at her when they were in the ambulance.

_Stop it, Stella_, she chided herself. _Do your job. Focus on the case._

Rolling onto her side, she quietly thought about the recent developments with Krasinski and Dan Pollack's murder. Stella couldn't figure this one out, though she'd been racking her brain for hours. Why now? Why twelve years after he'd been sent to jail? She'd even forgotten about it until Krasinski's name popped up on her computer screen. She'd moved on to work in the lab, only seeing Kenny Umber every once in a while when they happened to bump into each other.

Kenny.

Stella's eyes widened, and she gasped. She had to tell Kenny about the sniper, warn him to get out of town before something happened to him.

Rolling over, she snatched her phone off the nightstand and quickly dialed the number she'd found for Kenny. It rang once, then twice.

_Please let him pick up,_ she prayed silently.

It rang a third time, then a fourth, and then she heard a click on the other end of the line. "Kenny?" she asked before she even heard a greeting.

"_Hi, you've reached the voicemail of Kenny Umber,"_ his voice intoned into her ear. Stella cursed softly and resisted the urge to throw her phone across the room.

The phone beeped at her again. "Kenny, it's Stella," she said hurriedly, fighting the panic rising in her voice. "I need you to call me back as soon as possible. It's urgent. Please, call me back soon."

She hung up the phone and stared at it for a moment, chewing her lip thoughtfully. It was entirely probable that he just didn't have his phone on him, or he was busy and couldn't answer.

But it was also entirely possible that something had happened.

*****

Krasinski's cell looked a lot like a tornado had ripped through it.

Papers lay scattered about on the cold tile floor. The thin mattress was propped up against the wall, its single pillow tossed to the other side of the room and the blankets strewn about the floor. Mac leaned against the dingy wall, flipping through a copy of _Walden Pond_ he'd found by the bed.

Though his anger had subsided a little, he was still fuming. The memory of Stella in the back of that ambulance continuously teased his mind, refusing to leave, picking at his brain almost constantly. He'd seen her hurt like that far too much recently. But this was the first time he'd actually witnessed it himself. And he couldn't take it anymore. Whoever did this had to pay. They just had to.

"How's it goin', Mac?"

Flack's Queens-accented baritone made him spin around, and he regarded him coolly. "Nothing so far. But I'm not done."

He tossed the book onto the floor and picked up a stack of papers and envelopes from underneath the bed.

"You know," Flack said, leaning against the bars, "I've been trying my damndest to figure out what the hell that was about."

Mac bit back a groan and glanced up from the papers at his friend. "What was what about?"

"Don't play with me, Mac," the younger detective warned. "What the hell were you thinkin' back there? Threatening Krasinski, attacking him like that? What's to stop him from goin' straight to his lawyer and filin' a complaint against you?"

"I lost it," Mac mumbled, throwing the top sheet of paper onto the floor.

"I don't believe you." Flack folded his arms across his body and frowned. "You don't lose it, Mac. In the six years I've worked with you, you've never lost it."

Mac sighed. He should've known Flack wouldn't buy that excuse.

Flack ran a hand through his short dark hair and exhaled deeply. "Man, I get it. Believe me, I get it. If it were Jessica, I would've done the same thing, trust me."

He looked at Flack sharply. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"You know exactly what I'm talkin' about. I'm not blind, Mac, and I'm definitely not stupid. You've been dancing around Stella for years, and we all know why."

Mac's eyes widened for a split second, then narrowed again as he glared at his friend. "Don..."

"Don't bother trying to deny it. I saw the way you looked at her tonight, in the ambulance." Flack paused for a moment to rub his eyes. "But seriously, man, what would she say if she'd seen that little display you put on tonight?" He stared at Mac meaningfully for a long moment. "She'd feel awful if you threw away your career for her."

"And if I think she's worth it?" His eyes widened again as he realized what he'd said, what he'd given away with that simple statement. It came out before he could stop it, but now that it had been said, there was no way Flack would forget it.

Indeed, the younger detective smirked for just a moment before replying, "But she's not gonna see it that way. Just somethin' to think about." He snapped a pair of gloves over his hands and reached for the stack of papers Mac still held. "Let's see what we've got here."

Mac riffled through the papers in his hands, pretending to scan them. Really, though, his eyes weren't seeing a word on the page. He was completely lost in his own thoughts. Flack was right. No matter what he thought of Stella, she would be crushed if he threw away his career on her account, especially if they hadn't talked it over. Hell, they weren't even in a dating relationship!

But was Flack right about the other thing he'd said, about everyone knowing how they felt about one another? He didn't even really know how he felt about her. He knew that she made him happy, that she made him laugh. That she'd been there for him through thick and through thin, offering a kind word and an encouraging embrace when he needed it. He knew that his heart leaped whenever he saw her. He knew that she made him better, made him strive more for things that he wanted or things he should do.

He sighed inwardly. Why did things have to be so complicated? They _worked_ together, for crying out loud! Their trust was based on mutual respect and admiration. So why was he feeling like this?

"Hey, Mac." Flack's voice startled him out of his reverie again, and he looked over at the younger man.

Flack held up a letter with an official-looking header at the top of the page. "It's a notice from an attorney's office in Brooklyn. Did you know Krasinski's brother filed an appeal on his behalf last year to get his sentence reduced?"

Mac raised his eyebrows. "News to me. What happened?"

"According to this letter, it was denied just two months ago. Still a little justice in the world, huh?"

"Could be the motive we've been looking for."

"Could also be the accomplice on the outside we've been looking for." Flack shrugged. "What better accomplice than your brother?"

Mac thought for a moment, then nodded. "Track him down."

*****

Hawkes sighed wearily as the manager of the Sirius Building stopped at yet another door. They'd been searching empty offices for at least half an hour, coming up with absolutely nothing. Now on the thirty-eighth floor, they were just to the north of the lab's conference room.

"I still don't know what the hell you're talking about," the manager was saying. "No one's been in this room for years. This part of the building's been under construction since Giuliani was mayor."

Suddenly Hawkes' keen eye noticed some light scratches on the doorknob, and his hand flew out to grab the manager's wrist just before he touched the door. The manager shot him a dirty look. "Don't touch anything," he ordered. Glancing at Adam, he said, "See the scratches? Someone tried to break in."

"Was it jimmied?" Adam asked, taking the camera around his neck and snapping several pictures of the knob.

Hawkes knelt down on the floor and put his eye right next to the keyhole, peering inside. He could see tiny tool marks on the lock mechanism, like someone had jiggled it hard to force it open. "Yep. Definitely jimmied." He glanced at the manager. "Stand back for me, sir."

The manager wordlessly complied, and Hawkes put a gloved hand on the doorknob. He looked at Adam. "You ready?" Adam nodded, and Hawkes turned the knob.

The door swung open silently, revealing a large, vacant office on the other side. It looked like it had been uninhabited for years. Boxes sat unattended in the corner, and the distinct odor of mothballs wafted through the room. The window overlooking Broadway was wide open, the cool breeze circulating through the room. Cans of paint and plaster rested against the far wall, undisturbed.

Hawkes strode straight to the open window on the other side of the room. He opened his case and pulled out a small paper disc. Carefully he wiped it along the window ledge. Then he sprayed a chemical on the pad and held it up to the light. Within a couple of seconds, the center of the disc turned to a bright purple.

"We have GSR," Hawkes announced to Adam, who was dusting the knob for prints.

"At least we got somethin'," Adam muttered, squatting on the floor next to the door. "No prints on the doorknob, inside or outside."

Hawkes scanned the floor around him with his flashlight. "No shell casings." He turned back to the window and stared thoughtfully across the street toward the lab. From this point, he could clearly see the missing window of the conference room. "This has to be several hundred yards. The shooter would definitely need a high-powered rifle with a scope to see that far."

"Those can't be too common," Adam said, straightening with a groan. "Think this is the same guy? Why would he change his MO then?"

Hawkes thought for a moment, then looked at the manager of the building, who was standing in the hallway watching everything interestedly. "You have security tapes, right?"

The manager nodded. "Downstairs."

At the front desk on the ground floor, the security guard glanced up at the sound of the elevator dinging its arrival. He wiped something sticky-looking off his chin as the two CSI's approached. "I, uh, pulled up the video from earlier tonight," he said, spinning in his chair so that he faced the three computer screens in front of him.

Adam and Hawkes exchanged a glance. "Okay, cue it up for a quarter to eight," Hawkes instructed.

The guard hit a few keys, and the screen in the middle sprang to life. The picture of the lobby was completely empty. "Go back a little," Hawkes ordered again. The guard hit another button, and the picture zoomed backward. People flashed across the screen – a young woman in high heels, an older man with a cane – and then Hawkes pointed at the screen and said, "Hold it there."

The figure froze in the center of the screen. He was clothed in a dark t-shirt and blue jeans, with a cap pulled down over his face. A big, black duffel bag was slung over one shoulder.

"Check out that time stamp," Hawkes said, pointing to the bottom of the screen.

"Seven-thirty."

"That bag would definitely be big enough to carry a broken-down high-powered rifle. And it would give him plenty of time to break into an empty office, get set up, and wait for Mac and Stella to come into view. From that window, you can see into Mac's office, the trace lab, and the conference room."

Adam scratched at his scraggly beard. "So we know when and how."

"Now all we gotta figure out is who."

*****

Danny set the oversized suitcase on the floor of the elevator and groaned. "Why'd she have to get a room on the seventh floor again?" he complained, staring up as the numbers over the elevator door illuminated one by one.

Lindsay Monroe-Messer chuckled and tucked an errant strand of honey-blond hair behind her ear. "I thought it was your idea."

"I changed my mind," he huffed. "Who knew a woman would need so much crap?"

"It's not _that_ much," Lindsay said, ticking the list off her fingers. "Shampoo, conditioner, makeup, a couple of sweaters since it's supposed to get cold, a pair of blue jeans, a couple pairs of dress slacks, underwear…"

"Which I was more than happy to let you pack," Danny interrupted.

Lindsay laughed and gently patted his arm. "I'm sure Stella's grateful for that too."

Danny reached his hand around her back and pulled her to him, tenderly squeezing her hip. She'd amazingly regained most of her figure from before the pregnancy, even though it had been just two weeks since she delivered Lucy. But the thing he loved most was that certain glow about her, that look that only new mothers get. Motherhood had certainly done wonders for her, despite the late nights. And, since she'd dropped Lucy off at his mother's house before coming here, they could actually enjoy a night to themselves.

The elevator jerked to a stop, and the doors slid open with a loud _ding._ Danny grabbed the handle of the wheeled suitcase and dragged it out of the elevator. They rounded the corner, stopping in front of the room Stella was staying in.

Lindsay softly rapped her knuckles against the door. "Stel? It's Lindsay and Danny!"

No one answered.

"Stella?" Danny knocked a little harder. "Stel, we brought you some stuff."

"Maybe she's asleep," Lindsay surmised.

"Maybe." This time Danny made a fist and banged on the door loudly. "Stella!"

"Danny, something doesn't feel right." Lindsay's brow was furrowed concernedly.

He thought for a moment then reached into his back pocket for his wallet. "The front desk gave me an extra key card. She's probably just asleep, Linds. Being shot at's not exactly a walk in the park."

She glared at him. "Just open it."

Danny took the key card out of his wallet and swiped it through the slit next to the door knob. The lock beeped at him loudly. He glanced at Lindsay and slowly turned the knob. "Stella?" he called. "It's Danny and Lindsay."

Still no response.

He let Lindsay enter the darkened room first in case there was something he wasn't supposed to see, since he knew Stella would literally kill him if that happened. He waited outside the room, propping the door open with his foot.

"Stel?" he heard Lindsay call. Suddenly she shouted, "Danny, come here!"

Danny rushed into the room, scenarios of what could be wrong flashing through his mind. He found Lindsay standing in the center of the room, hands on her hips. She'd turned on one of the bedside lamps, and he glanced around the room. It was completely empty.

"She's gone!" His wife's voice was tinged with a mixture of panic and concern.

"Damn it," Danny cursed softly, pulling out his phone and quickly dialing. _Mac's gonna kill me._

*****

Stella glanced at the chirping phone in her hand, chewing her lip thoughtfully. Danny had called her twice in the last five minutes, and she couldn't stop the little twinge of guilt as she pressed the "end call" button one more time. She knew that he was probably worried sick about her, but she wasn't going back to the hotel. Not after she'd managed to slip past those detectives by going down the stairs to the kitchen and bribing one of the waiters to let her out the back door.

The cab idled outside a nice little brownstone in Astoria, Queens – the address Kenny had given her just after they met for coffee. The landscaped lawn was beautifully cared for, mostly by his wife. Several of the trees next to the house were just beginning to bud, despite the sudden snowfall from a few days before. The windows were completely dark and the house was apparently empty.

She quickly paid the cabbie and turned toward the house as the cab zoomed off down the street. Slowly she walked up the sidewalk toward the front porch, toward the creepily silent house in front of her. In the distance a dog barked, the only noise on the entire block. Briefly it reminded her of a cheap horror movie, and she resisted the urge to reach for the sidearm on her hip. She wasn't about to overreact if there really wasn't anything to worry about.

She climbed the three steps onto the porch and paused for a moment. Quietly she breathed a prayer that this was absolutely nothing, that the only thing she'd have to endure would be Kenny's ridicule for the next decade. She recalled that he was alone this week, with his wife and children upstate visiting family. Hopefully he was just asleep.

Finally she stepped up to the door and raised her hand. She rapped three times with her knuckles on the side of the screen door. "Kenny?" she called. "It's Stella."

No answer.

Stella frowned and knocked again, a little louder this time. "Kenny? Are you there?"

Still no answer.

On a whim, she opened the screen door and turned the doorknob. To her surprise, the door swung open with a loud creak, and she immediately put her hand on her holster.

"Kenny?" she called again.

Carefully she stepped across the threshold into the darkened parlor. Pulling her flashlight from her pocket, she pressed a button, and the beam illuminated the floor in front of her. She stepped forward again, the clicks from her heels echoing on the hardwood floor.

"Kenny?"

Still nothing.

She took a few steps forward, sweeping the beam back and forth as she walked. Suddenly, her light landed on a dark smear on the floor in front of her. A smear that looked a lot like blood.

Stella swallowed the panic threatening to rise up in her throat and tightened her grip on the butt of her gun. "Kenny? It's Stella! Kenny, are you here?"

Her beam alighted on another dark smear. Her heart thudded against her ribcage, and she could hear its sharp staccato drumming in her ears.

"Kenny?" she called again.

Suddenly the flashlight landed on a pair of wide open, bright blue eyes, their empty gaze staring straight at her in a permanent expression of surprise and horror, blond hair crimson with blood. She screamed, sweeping the beam across his blood-spattered face, the picture of those familiar features burning its impression into her mind.

And for the first time in a long time, Stella Bonasera broke.

* * *

**A/N2**: Yes, I'm back again. I just wanted to let you know I may or may not be able to update again this week. I have the final for my Literature class tomorrow and a big paper due Thursday and Friday I work for six or seven hours at the graduation for my school. So in many ways, the reviews y'all leave me will greatly aid in my decision-making! =] You've been great so far, so please, any feedback you can give is most welcome.


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N:** Good news!! I'm free! One more class down, three credit hours closer to graduating (which happens in December, by the way). Turned in my paper just now, found out I aced my final, and all is well. So I have one week of freedom before I start another class a week from Monday. Oh, and more good news... this story is about three or four paragraphs away from being completely finished. Of course, then I have to proof it, but it'll at least be done. Just thought I should pass that on to you =]

Thank you all so much for the reviews from the last chapter. I hope you enjoy this one as well. Reviews really do make my day. Many, many thanks to Lily for the read-through and discussion!

**Chapter 9**

Tires squealed in protest as Flack's car skidded to a halt outside Kenny Umber's brownstone. Multicolored lights from patrol cars flickered off the windows of the surrounding houses. Yellow tape had already been stretched across the lawn.

Mac leaped out of the car, leaving the driver's side door wide open as he strode toward the front door of the house, Flack close on his heels. He scanned the throng of people for a familiar face. At last he noticed Hawkes standing near the porch, case in hand, talking quietly on his cell phone. He couldn't see Stella, though he knew she was there. Danny had called him as they were on their way back into the city, nearly frantic with worry. And then when the call had come in about a possible officer-involved situation, he knew that it had something to do with her.

He marched toward Hawkes, easily maneuvering around uniformed officers. "All right, bye," he heard the doctor say.

"Hawkes!" he called.

The former medical examiner turned toward him. His mouth was set in a grim line as he slid the phone back in his pocket. Mac looked around, panic welling up in his chest when Stella's curly hair was nowhere in sight.

"Where's –" Mac started, but Hawkes held up a hand to stop him, obviously knowing what he was about to ask.

"She's fine, Mac. It's Kenny Umber," Hawkes said quietly. Mac couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief. At least Stella was all right. "He was shot twice in the chest. I haven't confirmed it yet, but it looks like a hell of a firefight in there. Didn't go down easily. Adam'll be here shortly; had to finish with some evidence from the sniper. He finished narrowing down the caliber of the weapon."

"And?" Mac practically bit out the word.

"It's a three-eighty Winchester, probably from a two-two-three Remington cartridge. Most commonly used in AR-15 military issue rifles and the M-16. Fit it with a scope, and it's an instant sniper rifle."

"Prints, video, anything else?"

Hawkes shook his head. "Got a video of him coming into the Sirius Building, but he had his head down the whole time. Nothing else."

"All right," Flack said, shooting a glance in Mac's direction, "I'll canvass the neighborhood. Someone must've heard something this time."

"Where's Stella?" Mac inquired as Flack jogged across the lawn toward the neighbor's house. He glanced around, knowing that she had to be there somewhere.

Hawkes suddenly looked awfully nervous, and Mac glared at him impatiently.

"Where's Stella?" he raised his voice this time.

"In my truck. She said she was going to call Danny," Hawkes replied, his own tone barely above a whisper. "Mac, she found him."

Slightly stunned, Mac raked a hand through his dark hair and sighed heavily. Just when he thought this night couldn't possibly get worse. A pang immediately shot through his heart when he thought about what this would do to Stella. She'd already nearly been killed tonight, and now she'd found her former partner murdered in his own home. She was strong, but every person had his or her breaking point.

Suddenly he remembered that he was still standing with Hawkes, who was staring at him inquisitively. Finally he sighed again and nodded. "Okay. I'll go talk to her."

He slowly stepped off the porch and trudged through the lawn toward Hawkes' Avalanche parked behind one of the cars. Everything around him slowly faded, his focus just on that truck. Sure enough, in the low light from the streetlamp, he could see his partner's curly head bent forward. His pace quickened until he was practically jogging.

When he reached the truck, he stopped cold in his tracks, staring at Stella. The passenger door was wide open, and she sat quietly in the front seat, long legs drawn up to her chest. One hand was buried in her curls and the other was draped across her knees. When she looked up at him, her green eyes were red-rimmed and her cheeks were wet. His heart broke. "Stel," he breathed.

He could see her shoulders shaking. "Oh, Mac," she whispered just before she launched herself into his arms.

Mac wrapped his arms tightly around her waist as she trembled with silent sobs, clinging to his neck as she cried. Her tears soaked through his shirt, but he didn't give it a second thought. "Shh," he soothed in her ear, reaching up with one hand to bury his fingers in her curls. They stood like that for several moments with no regard to what was going on around them.

Finally she pulled away, furiously wiping her eyes. One of his hands stayed on her waist, keeping her close. "I'm sorry, Mac," she murmured.

"For what?"

"For leaving the hotel. For coming out here on my own."

"Hey." He reached up and gently wiped away a tear with the pad of his thumb, and her eyes fluttered closed. "I'm just glad you're okay."

She nodded slowly, and he watched as she slowly pulled herself together. She really was a remarkable person. "I wanna stay, Mac. I can't just get off this case."

Mac shook his head. "Stella, I understand, believe me. But you just found your partner's murdered body, and someone tried to kill you just a few hours ago. You're too emotionally involved in all of this."

"I know, and that's exactly why I need to stay. I gotta find this son of a bitch before he kills someone else. Before he kills me! I can't sit in some hotel room somewhere wallowing in my misery, seeing his…" her voice trailed off, and she looked away from him toward the house. He could see her struggling to restrain her emotions. At last she looked at him again. "Please, Mac."

He looked away from her thoughtfully. In all honesty, he had half a mind to make her go back to the hotel and wait it out under twenty-four-hour guard. He'd already lost so much in his life, and he couldn't lose her too. But then he glanced at her again, into her pleading green eyes, rimmed with red, brimming with tears. If it had been her, he wouldn't have stopped until the person was caught. And he couldn't pretend that he didn't understand the desire to see justice done for a loved one.

But she didn't belong at the scene. She wasn't ready, despite what she thought.

At last he sighed and absently ran a hand down her arm. "What if we went back to the lab? Wait for Hawkes and Adam to finish with the scene, and then we'll test everything at the lab. Okay?"

"But –"

He gave her a stern look, and she sighed. She thought about it for a moment and slowly nodded her head. Internally he breathed a sigh of relief. She could still work on the case, and he could keep his eye on her. He was a little surprised she didn't argue more, but he could see the weariness in her eyes. "I need to talk to Hawkes and Flack for a minute," he said softly. "Wait for me here?"

She acquiesced with another nod, and he rubbed her arm again. "I'll be right back," he promised.

With his characteristically long strides, he walked toward the house, climbed the steps, and crossed the threshold. It was an absolute mess. Now that a couple of lamps in the living room had been turned on, he could easily see the damage to the walls. Blood was spattered on the walls of the parlor, and several dark crimson smears led him toward the living room. Without touching anything, he carefully maneuvered around the blood into the living room where Hawkes was snapping pictures. Kenny Umber's corpse lay in the center of the room, two distinct holes in his chest, a semi-automatic pistol just a few feet away from the body. Mac bit back a curse, imagining Stella walking in on something like this.

Apparently sensing he had company, Hawkes looked up at his boss. "How is she?" he asked quietly.

"I'm taking her back to the lab. I need your keys." Hawkes fished his keys from his pocket and handed them to Mac without any questions. "I want prints, trajectories, DNA, anything you can find. I wanna find this son of a bitch."

Hawkes nodded wordlessly, and Mac knew he got it. At the sound of a footfall on the wood floor behind him, Mac whirled around to see Flack skirt around the blood smears. "I talked to the next-door neighbor. Said he heard what sounded like a car backfiring around eight. Didn't think much about it."

Hawkes nodded. "Fits with the liver temp. But someone shot at Stella around seven-thirty. At that time of night, there's no way he got from Manhattan to Astoria in half an hour."

Mac frowned, glancing back and forth between Flack and Hawkes. "Get answers. Soon."

*****

The first thing Adam thought of when he entered the house was how much it looked like a scene straight out of one of those bad horror flicks he watched in college. He remembered getting completely plastered one night and watching the _Scream_ movies, where the fake blood/corn-syrup flowed like rivers. Even with all the alcohol in his system, those movies completely creeped him out.

Unfortunately, he didn't have much time to reminisce. Mac and Stella were nowhere to be seen, and Hawkes was bent over the dead man lying in the center of the room. "Whoa," Adam murmured, glancing around.

Hawkes looked up grimly. "Yeah, I know."

"Where do we even start?"

With a sigh and a groan, Hawkes straightened. "He was shot twice, both times in the chest. From the blood smears and high-velocity spatter on the wall at the entrance to the living room, I'd say he got hit right about here." He pointed to the parlor wall several yards from the body.

"And from the blood smears on the ground, he dragged himself toward the living room."

"Where I found this." Hawkes grabbed a bagged semi-automatic pistol from his kit and held it up. "Standard police issue, one round fired."

"Why not more?"

"Maybe because of this." Hawkes extracted the magazine and pulled the slide back, tipping it forward so Adam could see. "His piece jammed. I think he tried to run for the phone, but the killer caught up with him." He pointed to Umber's jaw, where a red bruise was just starting to form. "The killer cold-cocked him."

Adam rubbed his beard with one gloved hand and glanced around. "I don't see a hole anywhere. Where'd the round go?" Suddenly he noticed some foreign red dots near the front door, so small they were almost microscopic. "I got more spatter over here. So he hears a noise, grabs his piece, and sees the intruder."

"Umber fires once, but it's dark, and he doesn't kill him."

"The killer fires back and hits Umber twice in the chest."

"But from the blood smears, he didn't die right away. He dragged himself into the living room." Hawkes glanced around and noticed a phone on the end table next to the couch. "Probably going for the phone."

"And the killer sees him going for the phone, so he hits him in the jaw to knock him out until he bleeds out."

"Which means that the spatter over there," Hawkes pointed at the door, "is probably the killer's."

"And there's no bullet hole here. Which means that the round is probably still in the guy." Adam carefully swiped the area with a swab.

Nodding his head, Hawkes reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. "I'll call Flack, have him check out local hospitals for any gunshot wounds. We may have just found our first solid lead to this guy."

*****

Stella stood at the window of Mac's office, staring out over the city below. Lights flickered and twinkled in the blackness. The city was almost living and breathing, rife with action and vitality. At times she loved New York, and at times she hated it. Tonight, it reminded her of a life that was no longer in existence.

She rubbed her arms, the sleeves of her sweater scratching lightly at her skin. She felt so cold, even with the sweater. That expression on his face haunted her, those horrified eyes that had once twinkled with life, much like the city below her.

A soft knock on the glass door startled her, and she turned her head to see Mac step into his office, two cups of something hot in his hands. "I made you some tea," he said quietly, holding up one of the cups.

Stella smiled wanly. "Thanks, Mac."

He carefully handed her one of the cups, and she slowly sipped the steaming brew. Silence draped over them, and out of her peripheral vision, she saw him eying her as if she was going to suddenly disappear again. Part of her wanted to laugh and tell him that everything was okay. But the other part of her knew that he wouldn't believe her.

So she decided to break the silence. "Any news?" she asked.

Mac sighed, raising an eyebrow at her. "Stella – "

"You promised you'd keep me in the loop, Mac." She raised her own eyebrow, staring him down.

Finally the corner of his mouth twitched, and he lowered his mug. "So I did. Hawkes called. They think that the perp is running around with a bullet inside him. Flack's checking the local hospitals."

Stella nodded slowly and swallowed, hesitating to ask the next question on her mind. "And Kenny?"

Mac looked at her for a long moment, his eyes searching hers. At last he took a deep breath and gently touched her arm. "Sid's starting the autopsy soon."

"Oh God." She touched her forehead and, setting her mug down on his desk, made a beeline for the door. "I gotta call his wife…"

"Let Flack take care of that."

"But she needs to hear it from me…"

"Hey." Mac reached out and grabbed her arm, gently pulling her into his body. His hands grasped her upper arms, trapping her against him. She glared at him, angry that he'd cut her off. But then she noticed the quiet concern in his eyes, and her fury suddenly subsided. Before she quite knew what was happening, her eyes filled with tears. Immediately his arms wrapped around her waist, holding her close as she cried.

"He was just lying there," she sobbed, her hands fisting in his shirt.

"There wasn't anything you could've done," he whispered into her hair, his fingers lightly stroking her back soothingly.

"I should've called earlier. I should've had him get some protection."

"Stel, there wasn't anything you could've done." Slowly he pulled back but not away. Her eyes fluttered closed when the pad of his thumb brushed across her cheek, and when she opened them again, he was gazing at her tenderly. "But I promise you, we're gonna get this guy."

She stepped away slowly toward the window, her back to him, staring out over the city. "Do you ever feel like you're running out of time? Like life is just getting away from you?"

For a long moment, he didn't answer. Just as she was about to turn around to see if he was still there, she heard him softly say, "Sometimes."

"I used to tell myself I had all the time in the world to do everything I wanted to. Get married, have kids, travel the world." She spun around, connecting with his gaze. "Sometimes I forget how easily this job can cut my dreams short."

"Stella, it didn't."

"But it could've," she insisted. "Mac, that bullet was less than an inch from my head. The next one might not miss."

The line of his jaw tightened, and for a moment, she saw his eyes blaze with anger, though she knew it wasn't directed at her. "Not if I have anything to do about it."

Stella turned back to the window, unconsciously rubbing her arm again. "When I was a rookie, Kenny used to tell me all these things he wanted to see. The Taj Mahal, the Eiffel Tower, Buckingham Palace. His kids' graduations, their first cars. He wanted to walk his daughter down the aisle at her wedding." Tears started to fill her eyes again, and she took a deep breath. "And now he won't get to."

As she dropped her head into her hands, she felt Mac come up behind her and gently grasp her shoulders. She leaned back against his chest for support, breathing in his reassuring scent, fighting to hold back tears. "This shouldn't have happened," she murmured.

"No, it shouldn't've. But the best way to fix this is to catch this guy and give Kenny some justice. And we_ will_ catch this guy. Whenever an NYPD cop's been killed in the line of duty, we've always brought the killer to justice. No exceptions."

She gazed into his eyes for a long, silent moment. The line of his jaw was set determinedly, and his blue eyes were filled with fierce resolve. And she knew he was telling the truth. They were going to bring this guy down, no matter how long it took. Mac Taylor didn't break his promises.

Finally she nodded, and he pulled her into another warm embrace. She felt him drop a kiss onto the top of her head, and her arms tightened around his waist.

They stayed like that for several minutes, until she felt rather than heard his voice rumble in his chest. "You should get some sleep."

"I'm fine," she mumbled, but a wide yawn betrayed her.

Mac slowly released her, chuckling softly. "Liar. Get some rest. You need your strength." He leaned forward and brushed a kiss against her forehead then turned toward the door.

"Wait, Mac," she stopped him hastily. He looked curiously at her over his shoulder, and she dropped her gaze to her suddenly fascinating shoes. "I… I don't wanna be alone right now."

She peeked up at him, trying to gauge his reaction. He pressed his lips into a thin line pensively and glanced around the room. At long last he looked back up at her, the corners of his mouth tilted slightly upward. Wordlessly he sat down on the couch across from her and stretched out with a sigh, laying his head on the armrest, his feet dangling over the opposite arm. He looked at her and patted the thin strip of couch next to him. "C'mere."

Stella nearly burst out laughing, and she shook her head. "Mac, what're you…"

"I'm going to sleep. C'mon, there's plenty of room on this for both of us."

"But what about…" she glanced at the glass wall nervously, not wanting the team to think something inappropriate was going on.

He immediately understood what she meant, and he reached up and flipped the blinds closed. "There," he said, returning his gaze to her. "Now, come on. We're both adults."

Laughing silently, she crossed his office to him and leaned down to lingeringly kiss his cheek. "You're somethin' else, Mac Taylor," she whispered before lying down next him, snuggling into his side. He wrapped his arms around her, and she pillowed her head on his chest, listening to the steady rhythm of his heart.

"As are you, Stella Bonasera," he replied softly.

*****

Mac awoke somewhat befuddled the next morning. Thin tendrils of light crept into the room, and from the window, he saw that the gray dawn was slowly peeking over the top of the skyscrapers. In his sleep-addled mind, he registered that a very warm, very soft body was lying next to him, burrowed into his side. He glanced down at the dark curly head resting on his chest, and he smiled softly. Stella had curled up against him during the short night, one arm draped over his chest, breathing steadily. And, despite what she'd said, she didn't snore a bit.

Something about this felt so right. What it was, he didn't know.

Suddenly someone cleared his throat. Mac jumped then swore softly, glancing down at Stella to see if he'd woken her up. She stayed completely motionless, still in a deep slumber.

Don Flack stood over him, smirking openly. "Sorry to interrupt this Kodak moment."

He felt the telltale heat of a blush creeping over his cheeks, and he glared at Flack. "You'd better have a good reason for this, Don Flack."

"I canvassed local hospitals for any reported gunshot wounds last night. No such luck."

"Figures." Mac tried to sit up, but Stella's limbs were tangled hopelessly in his. A snicker came from Flack's direction, and Mac glared at him again. "What about Adam and Hawkes?"

"Sid finished his autopsy and sent the rounds to Hawkes in ballistics; at first glance they look like a match. Adam's waiting on the DNA from the scene. In the meantime, I finally managed to track down Jeremy Krasinski's brother. Owns a restaurant in Brooklyn."

"That's good work, Don," Mac said, slowly sliding his arm out from behind Stella's head. She whimpered once but then was silent.

"I was gonna head out there and talk to him, figured you wanted to go. That is, if you're not too comfortable. Did'ya have a good night's sleep?"

Mac narrowed his eyes at his friend while carefully removing Stella's arm from around his waist, eternally grateful she was such a deep sleeper. "Anything come up on his record?" he asked, pointedly ignoring Flack's remark.

"No priors, so nothing in the system. I'll dig a little deeper if we need to."

He nodded silently, cautiously untangling his legs from Stella. "Grab my piece from my drawer, Flack?" He stood and groaned, stretching his back.

Flack crossed the room to Mac's desk, reaching for the drawer. "Sleepin' on the couch isn't what it used to be, huh?" he teased.

Mac rolled his eyes. "Just get me my gun, Don."

The younger man snickered and pulled open the drawer. A loud creak echoed off the glass walls, and both men flinched. Stella murmured and stirred. "Mac?" she queried sleepily, her green eyes fluttering open.

He bent down next to her. "It's nothing, Stel. Go back to sleep, okay?"

"What's goin' on?" she asked, her voice husky from sleep and disuse. Apparently she didn't see Flack standing behind Mac's desk, because she didn't appear uncomfortable at all, for which Mac was extremely grateful.

"Flack found Jeremy Krasinski's brother. We're going to interview him, but then we'll be back."

Stella yawned and rubbed her eyes. "I'll come with you. Just give me a minute."

Mac shook his head and brushed back a stray curl that had fallen into her eyes. "I'd feel better if you stayed here." She opened her mouth to protest, but he held up a hand and stopped her. "For your own safety, okay? Adam and Hawkes are running through some evidence in the lab; if you need anything, let them know."

She glared at him sleepily, but she slowly nodded her assent. Mac patted her arm gently, glad once again that she didn't argue. She must've been more exhausted than he thought. "Go back to sleep, okay? I'll see you when I get back."

"'Kay," she muttered as her head sank to the couch again and her knees drew up to her chest so she was curled into a ball.

He bent over to lightly kiss her on the forehead, forgetting for a moment that Flack was in the room with them, but her breathing had already evened out. Slowly he straightened, catching Flack's smirk out of the corner of his eye. "Shut up, Don," he growled, snatching his holster out of the detective's hand and clipping it to his belt.

"I didn't say a word," Flack protested.

"And it better stay that way. Just remember two things, Don. First, I'm a Marine. I know a hundred ways to kill a man with a ballpoint pen."

Flack raised an eyebrow, a hint of that snarky smirk playing at the corner of his mouth. "And what's the second thing?"

Mac stepped closer to him, hardening his gaze, secretly enjoying the way the smug grin slid off the younger man's face. "I know how to hide a body so it'll never, ever be found." Without another word, Mac brushed past him and out the door.

*****

"Taste of Roma" was a small Italian restaurant in Brooklyn. A little hole-in-the-wall eatery, its interior dining room was decorated in prints of famous Italian art, including a miniature sculpture of Michelangelo's _David_ in one corner. The darkened room was illuminated by two dim chandeliers and candles on each table, which were delicately covered in white linen tablecloths, creating quite an intimate setting for its patrons.

"_Buon giorno_!" the young host said cheerfully as the two detectives strolled into the dining room. "Table for two?"

"Actually, we'd like to speak to the owner," Flack said, flashing his badge.

The young man's eyes widened. "Whoa. You're really cops?"

"Yeah, we're cops." He looked the young man up and down for a moment, noticing the fair skin and blond hair. "You don't look Italian, though."

"Uh…" he stammered, glancing nervously between the two men.

Mac exchanged an amused glance with his colleague. "Can we speak to Mr. Krasinski?"

"Uh… sure. I'll take you back to his office."

He led them through the busy kitchen and down a long corridor to a thin wooden door tucked into the corner. "Thanks, we got it from here," Flack said dismissively, ignoring the young man's surprised look as he raised his hand to knock on the door.

"Come in!" a voice from inside called.

Flack pushed open the door, stepping into a very spacious office. It was decorated much like the dining room, eggplant paint on the walls, a large print of a famous Italian painting over the mahogany desk. A distinguished-looking man was seated behind the desk, pen in hand, papers spread out around him. Gray just touched his temples, and his brow was just a little wrinkled, but those were the only signs of middle-age about him. He was well-dressed in a pinstripe suit with a very expensive-looking tie. "Yes?" he asked, looking a little surprised at the two strangers in his office.

"Robert Krasinski?" Flack inquired.

"Yes, I'm Robert Krasinski. Who are you?"

Flack took out his badge. "Detective Flack, NYPD, and this is Detective Taylor with the Crime Lab."

Krasinski's eyebrows rose. "Oh?"

"We'd like to ask you some questions about your brother."

"My brother?" Krasinski echoed. Flack nodded. He motioned to the plush leather seats in front of his desk. "Please, have a seat."

As they seated themselves in the chairs, a picture of two men in military uniforms next to the window caught Mac's eye. "You were in the military?" he asked, gesturing toward it.

Krasinski smiled. "Yeah, I was in the army a long time ago."

"I was in the Marines."

"Really?"

"If you don't mind," Flack interrupted. "I understand you're a busy man, so if we could get this over with?"

"Of course, sorry." Krasinski leaned back in his chair and folded his hands over his chest. "How can I help the NYPD? What did my brother do now?"

Mac glanced at Flack before answering. "We think he might be connected with three murders and an attempted murder we're investigating. One was a cop, killed last night. All four of the victims were connected with your brother's conviction twelve years ago."

Krasinski furrowed his brow inquisitively. "My brother's in jail; how could he have had something to do with murder?"

"That's what we're trying to figure out, Mr. Krasinski," Flack answered smoothly. "Did he ever mention retribution for his conviction? Revenge against the people that testified against him?"

He thought for a moment then shook his head. "He was angry, just like anyone else would've been. But he never mentioned anything like that. He wouldn't be involved in something like that anyway."

"Forgive my bluntness," Mac interjected, "but he committed murder once before."

The other man smiled mirthlessly. "Detective Taylor, my brother was an idiot a long time ago. But he's smart enough not to do anything that would jeopardize what little future he has left."

"But you recently filed an appeal on your brother's behalf." Mac leaned forward in his chair, resting his elbows on his knees. "Why would you do something like that?"

Krasinski also leaned forward, mirroring Mac's posture. "My brother's an idiot, but he's still my brother."

"So," Flack said with a smile, "if you don't mind me asking, where were you last night?"

"Right here until late. We hosted the mayor and some of his staff until closing at ten."

Mac opened his mouth to say something, but his phone chirped at him. "Excuse me," he said apologetically to Krasinski, taking out his phone and pressing a button. "Taylor." He listened for a moment. "Okay. We'll be right there." He hung up and looked at the man behind the desk. "Mr. Krasinski, thank you for your cooperation. We'll be in touch." Ignoring Flack's stunned expression, he extended his hand congenially, which Krasinski shook.

As soon as the door closed behind them, Flack turned to his colleague and hissed, "What was that?"

"That was Adam. He found a match in CODIS on the blood from Umber's house. We've got our killer."


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N:** Thank you guys again for all the fantastic reviews! Really, I appreciate them so much. I hope you all enjoy this chapter; three more to go (finally, after 4 months of writing this thing)! Please, let me know what you think!

**Many thanks**, as always to Lily for the encouragement and help with this story. This particular chapter gave me lots of grief, and thank you for helping me get it straight. Thanks also to Holly for leaving a review for this chapter and the last one! Anonymous reviews are always welcome.

**Chapter 10**

The apartment he was staying at wasn't much, but it was safe. And at this point in the game, that was all that mattered to him.

He hissed as he slowly pulled the bandage on his shoulder off. Damn that cop. He was faster than he'd originally thought. The wound underneath was red and nasty-looking, still seeping with blood even a few hours later. He knew he should get it checked out by a doctor, but that would be a fatal mistake if he wanted to stay out of prison.

Some hydrogen peroxide sat on the countertop nearby next to a half-full bottle of whiskey. He reached for the whiskey first, taking a long swig of the harsh liquid, wincing as it burned fire down his esophagus into his stomach. If he couldn't get regular pain-killers, he'd just have to do it the old-fashioned way. Then he reached for the cleansing chemical, pouring some onto a large, clean rag. He took a deep breath, and slowly dabbed it against the seeping hole in his shoulder.

God, that stuff burned like hell! He grunted in pain and gritted his teeth against the fire in his shoulder, slowly dabbing the area with the rag, which was quickly turning red with his blood. Finally satisfied that the wound had been sterilized again, he tossed the rag onto the floor and snatched up the gauze waiting on the counter, two strips of tape already on either end. With his good hand, he placed the gauze on top of the wound and gently pressed the tape into place.

Releasing a sigh, he tilted his head back and blew out a breath. At least that part was over.

He knew he'd screwed up big time at that cop's house, allowing himself to get hit like that. And it would only be a short matter of time before the cops would come knocking down his door. By now, he figured that his face was plastered all over the city, so running wasn't an option, even if he wasn't wounded.

He looked back at the kitchen counter where his Ruger sat. He reached over and grasped the butt of the gun, his fingers wrapping around it with great familiarity.

If they were coming for him, he was going to be ready.

*****

Daylight slowly pulled Stella out of her deep sleep, streaming into Mac's office from the window. She groaned and squeezed her eyes shut tighter. She'd been having the most incredible roller-coaster of a dream, of bullets whizzing past her ear and crimson blood staining wooden floors and strong arms holding her captive to an equally powerful chest. It seemed so real, right down to the familiar scent of Mac's cologne. She could still smell it, in fact… that wonderful smell of man… and he always smelled so good…

Slowly she opened one green eye, squinting against the sudden intrusion of light. For a moment, she was rather befuddled. Instead of her warm and comfortable bed, she was lying on a thin leather couch, with her legs drawn up to her chest. And instead of the deep red of her bedroom walls, the sheet rock around her was a kind of butter yellow, decorated with pictures of medals and Marines.

And then she realized it wasn't a dream. Everything rushed back to her: flying glass as the window shattered, discovering Kenny's body, falling asleep in Mac's arms after crying in his office.

It was worse than a nightmare.

She sat up gingerly, rolling her neck around to get all the kinks out of her ligaments. Mac was nowhere in sight, and she reached for her phone on the coffee table nearby. No new messages. Vaguely she remembered him waking her up earlier this morning, telling her that he was going somewhere to talk to someone, so she decided against calling him. If he had anything, he'd tell her.

Stella raked a hand through her tangled curls and took a deep breath. She couldn't remember the last time she'd slept so well, with his warm arms wrapped around her, his breath tickling her ear, his stubble scratching against her skin…

_Stop it!_ she commanded herself again. This was getting a little ridiculous. Even though she'd never slept quite so well in months… and he smelled so good… and…

_Okay_, she thought. _I've really got it bad._

Yawning, she stood up and stretched, wincing as her back and shoulders cracked loudly. An unbidden smile rose to her lips at the memory of Mac lying down on that couch, giving her that rare cheeky smile she missed. She loved it when he broke out that grin of his, that one that momentarily stopped her heart from beating.

Just as she decided to head toward the break room and make some coffee, the door swung open with a soft _whoosh_. Mac poked his head into his office, and she froze when his blue eyes landed on her. "Morning," he said, the corners of his mouth turning up slightly.

"Morning," she replied, pulling absently at her sweater. Mac cocked an eyebrow at her curiously, and she stopped, opting instead to cross her arms over her chest.

"I'm glad you're up. Come with me."

"Where?"

"Adam might've found our killer. I thought you'd want to see."

Her eyes widened at his words, and she instantly complied, brushing past him as he held the door open for her. He ushered her down the hallway, a warm hand on the small of her back, as casual as could be. She tried not to dissect his actions, attempting to convince herself that it meant absolutely nothing. She'd almost had herself completely convinced when they reached the lab. Mac held open the door for her again, and she smiled at him and nodded her thanks.

Flack was already there with Adam, looking intently at a computer screen. Both men turned around as she and Mac approached. "Morning, Sleeping Beauty," Flack greeted her with a grin.

"Shut it, Don Flack," she retorted good-naturedly.

"What've you got, Adam?" Mac queried, giving Stella an amused glance.

Adam stepped back from the computer screen, letting his bosses gather around it. A dark-haired man glared back at them with glittering blue eyes and a slight sneer playing on his mouth, so cold it sent shivers down Stella's spine. "DNA from the house came back to Eric McGinnis. Forty years old, born in Ireland. According to INTERPOL, he's a former Provisional IRA fighter, suspected of at least ten murders in Belfast during the 1990's. In 1997, he immigrated to the United States. In 1999, he was arrested for assault, but the charges didn't stick."

"Explains how his DNA got into our system," Stella mused.

"What about a current address on this guy?" Flack interjected.

"See, that's the tricky part." Adam folded his arms in front of him and leaned back against the table. "This guy fell completely off the grid after his assault arrest. There's no record of a driver's license or credit card under his name, and he's never signed an apartment lease in the Tri-State area."

Mac frowned. "He's either living under an assumed name, or he's staying with someone. A friend, maybe?"

"Makes sense," Stella replied. "Contract killing isn't exactly a business where you wanna leave a paper trail."

"So what now?" Flack looked expectantly at Mac, waiting for his instruction.

"We find out where he is." Mac glanced at Stella. "And I think I know how. Flack, you're with me."

When he turned to leave, Stella suddenly reached out and grabbed his arm. "Wait, Mac." He trained his questioning gaze on her, raising an eyebrow in a silent inquiry. "I'm coming with you."

He sighed and rubbed his forehead with his thumb and index finger like he usually did when he was exasperated. "Stella…"

"Mac, I can't stay in the lab twiddling my thumbs while you go get the bad guy." Remembering that they weren't alone, she took a step closer to him and lowered her voice. "You know that if it'd been me, they couldn't pry you off the case with the jaws of death."

He cracked a half-smile at that statement, and she touched his arm.

"If it'll make you feel better, the second things go south, I'm out of there. But please, don't make me stay here waiting for you, worrying if you're going to be all right."

He pressed his lips into a thin, pensive line and looked at her for a long, silent moment. She firmly held his gaze, staring into those deep blue pools, careful to not back down. Because she was Stella and could read him like a book, she could see the war he was waging with his emotions. He wanted to keep her safe, but he also understood exactly what she was dealing with.

Finally he blew out a breath and looked at her sternly. "You'll leave when _I_ tell you to, and not a moment later?"

Stella held up two fingers. "Scout's honor."

Mac frowned. "You weren't a scout."

"Semantics." She smiled, and Mac shook his head incredulously.

"One of these days, Bonasera…" he muttered, just before he turned around and headed for the door. Slightly confused, she watched him for a minute, surprised when he turned around and looked at her again with one eyebrow cocked. "You comin'?" he asked her.

A smile slowly spread across her face and she walked toward him, gently patting his cheek with her palm. "Wouldn't miss it."

*****

The loud, screeching buzz of heavy machinery echoed through the air even outside the auto-body shop, bouncing off the surrounding edifices. Mac pulled open the heavy side door for Stella and Flack, wincing at its protesting shriek. He followed them into the dark warehouse, smoothly removing his sunglasses as his eyes adjusted to the change in light.

On the other side of the warehouse, yellow sparks from the buzz saw shot through the air, falling silently to the cold concrete floor. A couple of men in hard hats and goggles stood a few feet away, wordlessly observing the work with a practiced eye. And another man stood further back, the color of his helmet indicating that he was the foreman for this particular warehouse.

Mac got his colleagues' attention and pointed to that foreman. That was their man.

They strode purposefully toward him, crossing the expanse of the warehouse in a matter of seconds. Mac reached out and tapped the man on the shoulder. He spun around, shouting something that was garbled in the sound of the buzz saw. Mac held up his badge, and the man's blue eyes narrowed suspiciously. Tapping his ear with a finger, Mac jerked his head toward the door, silently commanding him to follow. Eyes narrowing impossibly more, the foreman glanced at his crew then back at the three detectives. At last he nodded once. Mac turned on his heel and led them back to the door, grimacing again at the horrid screech of rusted hinges.

As the door slammed shut behind them, the man whirled around and whipped off his hard hat, glaring at Mac. His dark hair was tinged with gray and matted to his skull with sweat, and his face was streaked with grime. "Mac Taylor. Never thought I'd have to lay me eyes on your bloody face again," he said in a thick Irish brogue. His gaze shifted to the other two detectives, finally alighting on Stella. "Now this pretty thing couldn't possibly be a cop."

"Detective Bonasera, Detective Flack, meet Daniel Mulcahey," Mac introduced them. "Former captain in the IRA, now foreman at Brooklyn's top auto repair shop."

"Y'forgot to mention you busted my arse ten years ago. Claimin' I was sellin' stolen parts. Biggest bunch a' bullshit I ever heard."

Mac shook his head and looked at Stella, a slightly amused smile at the corner of her mouth. "Except for the fact that we found stolen auto parts at his shop. Forgot to remove the serial numbers."

"Didn't forget!" Mulcahey folded his arms across his chest and glared at Mac again. "Just hadn't gotten around to it yet."

Hearing Stella bite back a snort, Mac grinned. "Still singin' the same old sad tune."

"Hard for an old Irishman to break his habits." Mulcahey's expression grew serious. "Now what brings y'knockin' at my door after all this time?"

"We're lookin' for somebody you might know," Flack interjected. He pulled out a picture of McGinnis and held it in front of Mulcahey's face. "Recognize this guy?"

The Irishman's gaze slowly shifted to the younger man, looking him up and down as if he was sizing him up. "I know a lot'ta people, lad."

"He's wanted in connection with three murders, including the murder of a cop." Flack's eyes hardened. "So we don't exactly have time for your games."

Mulcahey arched his eyebrows, and he glanced at Mac. "Your friend here needs a lesson in speakin' to his elders."

"He's got a point, though," Mac replied smoothly, giving Flack a warning glance. "This guy killed a cop. You know how it is when someone kills one of your own."

He mulled it over for a moment. Finally, he slowly nodded. "What's the lad's name?"

"Eric McGinnis," Stella answered.

"And why do you think I would know him?"

"He's former IRA."

Mac stepped forward. "And, since you were with the IRA for a couple of decades, you might know where he is, or you might know someone who would know."

Mulcahey smiled. "You're in luck, Taylor. I do know him, and I do know where he is. Now my question is…" he glanced at Stella, "what would I get for such a valuable piece a'information?"

Mac's blue eyes hardened at the insinuation, but he kept his cool. "How about the joy of knowing you helped the NYPD catch a killer? If it'll help your decision, you can drop my name the next time you get in trouble."

The smile on the other man's face widened. "You're a fair man, Mac Taylor. All right. Maybe a week ago, he came t'me lookin' for a place ta stay for a few weeks while he worked a job."

"How'd you know him?" Stella queried curiously.

"From the same village in Ireland. His da was a good friend."

"Where'd you send him?" Mac asked.

"Friend a'mine's outta town for a few weeks, so I gave him a key to his place in SoHo. Great apartment, overlooks one of the best pubs in the city."

"Where?" Even Mac was growing a little impatient.

"2176 Grand Street, Apartment 4D."

"'Bout damn time," Flack huffed, turning on his heel and taking his characteristically long strides toward the car.

Subconsciously placing his hand on Stella's shoulder, Mac nodded gratefully at the Irishman. "I owe you one."

The Irishman chuckled and nodded his head. "Damn right ya do."

*****

Mac strapped the Kevlar vest to his chest, his blue eyes scanning the apartment building before them for any sign of life. He pulled back the slide on his weapon and let it go with a soft click. He glanced at Stella beside him, watching carefully as she mirrored his actions. Her jaw was set in a determined line, and when she looked at him, her eyes flashed.

"Where do you think you're going?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. He ignored the pair of SWAT officers running to the front door of the building, automatic weapons in hand.

Stella slid her weapon out of her holster and glared at him. "Don't use that Marine boss tone of voice with me, Mac Taylor."

"You promised." She opened her mouth to protest, but he shushed her with a glance. "I'm serious, Stel. We don't know what we're walking into up there."

"You ready?" At the sound of Flack's voice coming up beside him, Mac turned his head. His friend had already donned his protective vest, and his badge was clipped to the top of it. Flack's blue eyes darted back and forth between his colleagues.

Mac turned back to Stella and raised his eyebrow questioningly. "Well?"

She glared at him, her green eyes glittering. "Mac, I rode in the same squad car with Kenny for more than a year. His family had me over for Thanksgiving dinner. His wife went shopping with me when we had time off. And that man -" she jabbed her finger at the apartment - "took him away from his family. I can't sit back like a helpless little girl. Not when his body is barely cold."

He stared at her wide-eyed for a long moment, his eyes locked to hers. He'd never realized how deep her friendship with Kenny Umber went. It was almost like the Umbers had taken her in and made her a part of their family for so brief a time. His throat tightened, knowing what it had been like for her growing up.

"Besides," she said softly, dropping her gaze from his, "you'll need as many people as you can watching your back."

"Can't argue with that," Flack interjected, shrugging when Mac looked at him.

Finally Mac sighed resignedly. Lately he seemed so incapable of telling her no. "Okay." He wagged a finger at her. "But nothing stupid."

Stella lifted an eyebrow. "Mac, this is me you're talkin' to."

"I know."

He raked a hand through his hair and stepped away from her for a moment while she reached into the truck for something. Flack followed him. "It'll kill her if somethin' happens to you."

Mac glanced at him. His jaw clenched. "It'll kill me if something happens to her."

Flack smiled tightly, his lips pressed into a thin line. "So we don't let anything happen."

Upon hearing footsteps behind them, they turned as Stella approached them. "What're we waitin' for, boys? Let's go!" She hurried ahead toward the front stoop of the building, leaving the two men shaking their heads incredulously as they followed.

One of the SWAT officers opened the front door with a creak, and Mac stepped into the darkened stairwell, Stella and Flack behind him. He climbed the stairs step by step, moving as quickly and quietly as possible. They reached the second floor landing and picked up the pace, their labored breathing the only sound in the hallway.

Suddenly they heard a door open on the third floor above them. Mac raised his gun, finger on the trigger. Keys jangled, and Mac tensed his finger just a hair.

A gray-haired older woman stepped into view, and Mac lifted his gun up and away from her. "Ma'am," he hissed. She glanced down at him and opened her mouth, but he silenced her quickly. He held up his badge. "Get back inside," he commanded.

She put her hands on her hips like she was about to argue, but he hurried up the last few steps with Stella on his heels and gestured toward the door again. "Get inside!" She glared at him but complied. Keys clattered again, and she stepped inside the apartment again.

"Crazy lady," Flack muttered, coming up behind Mac. The elder man shook his head and motioned for them to continue up the stairs toward the fourth floor.

Their feet hit the landing in near silence. Apartment 4D was on the left, across from the staircase. His grip on the gun tightening, Mac leaned his back against the wall next to the door. Stella took her position beside him, and his hand automatically came up to the warm skin of her arm, pressing her against the wall. Flack hit the wall on the other side, and the SWAT officers quickly took their positions.

Mac pounded on the door with his fist. "NYPD! Open up!" he shouted.

He listened closely. Rustling sounded from inside the apartment. He nodded at one of the SWAT officers, who produced a battering ram. With one swift movement, the door splintered from its lock, flying into the apartment. They rushed into the room, quickly scanning it for any sign of life. Shouts of "Clear!" came from the SWAT as they checked closets and doors around the tiny space.

His gaze traveled over the room until it landed on a bloodied rag on the kitchen counter next to a bottle of hydrogen peroxide. Stella got Flack's attention and gestured toward the strip of crimson-stained cloth. "Definitely in the right place."

Suddenly a loud clatter sounded from above, and Mac glanced toward the kitchen. The window to the fire escape was thrown wide open, curtains fluttering in the breeze. He crossed toward it with a few long strides and stuck his head out the window, looking up. He heard the clatter again and briefly spotted a foot disappear.

"Flack, roof!" he cried.

He clambered out the window and onto the fire escape, Stella close behind him. He looked up just in time to see a face peering over the side at him, cold blue eyes glittering in the sunlight. "Stop! Police!"

The face disappeared, and he heard heavy footfalls on the metal. He dashed up the stairs two at a time, laboring for breaths as he climbed up and up toward the roof three stories above him. His shoes hit the roof, and he spotted a figure sprinting across the flat surface toward the side. "Freeze!" he shouted. He turned around to check for Stella, whose curly head peeked over the side.

Suddenly he saw her eyes widen, and she screamed, "Mac, down!"

He whirled around just in time to see McGinnis raise his hand, fingers clenching something in the shape of a semi-automatic handgun. Mac's eyes widened and he threw himself to the ground just as the muzzle flashed and a bullet slammed into the concrete behind him. Feminine hands grasped his shoulders, and he looked up at Stella. Her green eyes were wide with worry.

"You okay?" she asked.

"Yeah, fine," he answered hastily, struggling to his feet.

"Aren't you glad you let me come after all?"

Mac just chuckled and shook his head. "Immensely." He scanned the rooftop and spotted his quarry running full speed toward his left. "Stay here," he ordered.

He lifted his own gun and raced after McGinnis, who sprinted toward the edge of the roof. To his right a rusted metal door flew open and Flack burst through the doorway, his gun up and ready. "Halt!" Flack yelled. He fired once wide, and McGinnis sped up, running straight for the roof's edge and the seven-story drop to the alley below.

"Stop, McGinnis!" Mac yelled again.

The man slammed on his brakes, skidding to a halt right at the roof's edge. He glanced back at the cops heading toward him, finger twitching on the trigger of his gun. He looked across the alley to the roof of the neighboring building, and his fists clenched.

"Don't do it!" Mac cried, raising his weapon. Stella's labored breathing beside him filled his ears. "You'll never make that jump!" Out of his peripheral vision, he spotted Flack quietly making his way to the left, ducking out of sight behind an air conditioning unit.

McGinnis turned around slowly, hand still grasping the gun tightly, the other falling limply at his side. His icy eyes shifted from Mac to Stella to the SWAT officer coming up behind him and back again, watching them like a prey would watch a hunter. Mac saw his finger twitch against the trigger, and instinctively his own index finger tightened against the cool metal of his gun.

"Just put down the gun!" Mac shouted. "Put it down, and we can end this!"

McGinnis glanced behind him again, looking down to the concrete alley behind him and across to the roof. Behind him was freedom, sweet freedom. In front of him was prison. He didn't want prison.

"I'm not goin' t'prison!" McGinnis replied obstinately.

"You killed at least three people in New York. Prison's your only option," Mac answered. "But if you put down your gun, we can at least talk deal."

"I told ya, I'm not goin'! There's no honor in surrender."

Mac shook his head. Briefly he caught a glimpse of Flack stealthily creeping forward, tiptoeing ever so carefully toward the drama at the edge of the rooftop. "You're wrong about that. There's wisdom in knowing when you've been bested."

McGinnis's cold eyes glittered. "Y'haven't bested me yet."

In that moment, Flack leaped forward in a perfect tackle, knocking the other man to the ground as he shouted curses. McGinnis's gun skittered away from him, and he tried desperately to punch the detective with his good hand. Flack reared back and his fist connected with McGinnis's jaw with a resounding _crack_. Within seconds, he'd flipped the gunman onto his stomach and yanked his hands behind his back.

Mac lowered his gun and slowly walked forward as Flack whipped out his cuffs and slapped them on the other man's wrists. McGinnis glared at him bitterly, spouting every curse and epithet under the sun at him in his frustration.

"Get him up," Mac ordered, sliding his gun back into his holster.

Flack grabbed McGinnis's shirt collar and hauled him off the ground. "C'mon, none a'that now," the detective said when McGinnis tried to resist.

Mac stepped forward until he was nose-to-nose with the Irishman. "Who hired you?" he demanded.

The Irishman said nothing. But his gaze shifted to Stella, and the corner of his mouth lifted into a smirk. Mac felt his blood boil, and he grasped both sides of McGinnis's shirt collar threateningly. He heard Stella call his name warningly, but he didn't care.

"You son of a bitch. Who hired you?!"

McGinnis chuckled darkly. His eyes locked with Mac's, and he leaned forward to whisper, "I believe I have the right to remain silent. I think I'll use it."


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N:** Thank you guys for the wonderful reviews in the last chapter! You're all awesome. I tried to respond to all of your reviews, but if I missed you, I'm sorry. It was definitely appreciated. I figured I'd put this up on one of my last days of vacation before classes begin next week. I'm taking a week-long class starting Monday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and hopefully I'll have a little time between class and homework to put up the final two chapters of this story. I can barely believe it... In 4 days, I start my last semester of college! Anyways, hope you guys enjoy this chapter!

**Many thanks** as always to Lily for the read-through and discussion over this story. I definitely wouldn't have gotten this far without your help.

**Chapter 11**

Stella held her breath at the look in Mac's eyes. The blue irises smoldered with anger, an expression she hadn't seen in years. At last, eyes never leaving McGinnis's, Mac released his shirt collar, breathing hard. "Get him outta here," he ordered.

Silently Flack shoved McGinnis toward the door. When McGinnis's gaze found hers, she stared back unflinchingly at the man who'd taken her friend's life without a blink. The unbidden image of Kenny's dead body flashed across her mind's eye, and she took a deep breath. She watched as Flack ushered the Irishman toward the roof's door, releasing her breath when they disappeared from sight. She glanced at Mac where he stood motionless. She took a couple of tentative steps toward him, reaching out for him until her hand gently touched his shoulder. "Mac?" she asked quietly.

He turned his head slightly to look at her. When his eyes locked with hers, they softened from flint back to a sapphire-blue. "I'm fine, Stel," he said in answer to her unspoken question.

She nodded and let her hand linger on his shoulder for just a moment. Dropping her gaze from his, she walked over to where the gun lay and, taking a glove from her pocket, picked it up by the butt. "Ruger P89. Uses nine-millimeter ammo."

"Same type of weapon used in all three murders." He sighed. "If we're gonna get him to tell us who's behind this, though, we're gonna need more leverage."

Stella nodded. "So let's search the apartment."

While Mac went for their cases, Stella climbed down the stairs from the roof back to the apartment. She took a pair of gloves out of her pocket and pulled them over her slender fingers. She surveyed the room with a practiced and observant eye. It was sparsely furnished, with one sofa and one chair in an otherwise empty living room. No pictures hung on the walls. An older-looking television covered in dust sat in the corner.

Frowning, she walked into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. Some beer, a loaf of bread, and three apples sat on one of the shelves. Stella straightened, shut the door, and opened the cabinet next to it. It contained some cans of instant soup, some instant coffee, and a couple cans of corned beef.

"Anything interesting?"

At the sound of Mac's baritone voice behind her, she glanced over her shoulder. The corners of her lips curled into a slight smile at the sight of him standing in the doorway, their cases in hand. "Not really. I don't think he was planning on staying for long." She gestured to the cabinets. "Not much food in here."

"Crash pad."

"Looks like it."

Mac gestured toward the bedroom on the far side of the apartment. "Bedroom or living room?"

"Bedroom?"

"Okay."

She picked up her case and walked down the short corridor to the bedroom, wincing at the loud creak emitted by the door as she pushed it open. Like the living room, the bedroom was very sparsely furnished. A twin-sized bed was pushed up against the back wall, covered in a single comforter and no sheets. The only other furniture in the room was a small dust-covered dresser.

The closet door was open, and she crossed the tiny room in just a few steps. Grasping the door with a gloved hand, she slowly pulled it back some more so she could look inside. A heap of clothes lay on the floor. She bent down and picked up a pair of pants. She reached inside one of the pockets and was surprised when her fingers touched something cool, metallic, and cylindrical. Slowly she pulled it out and held it up, watching as light glittered off the brass.

"What'd you find?"

She turned her head to see that Mac had come up behind her again. "Shell casing," she said, holding it up for him to examine. "Nine mil."

He held out his hand for the pants, and she gave them to him wordlessly. He dug through the other pockets. "Five more of them in here."

"Guess that answers the question of what happened to the shell casings."

"Guess so."

"Got a glove here too." Stella held up the leather glove and shone her beam on the torn thumb. "Missing some string."

Mac tossed the pants on the bed and strode toward the dresser. Meanwhile, Stella knelt down and, placing her hands on the floor, leaned over to peer under the bed. It was too dark under there to see, so she took out her flashlight again and pressed a button. The beam cut through the darkness, illuminating two odd-looking shapes on the floor.

"Hey, Mac," she said, reaching under the bed. "I got something."

Footsteps clicked against the wood as he stepped around the bed toward her. Her grasping fingers clutched at leather, and with a soft grunt, she pulled out a briefcase and handed it to him. She reached back under the bed and out came a black, heavy backpack. Quickly she straightened up again and tossed the backpack on the bed.

"P.M.L." Mac held up the brown leather briefcase and pointed a gloved finger at the monogram next to the handle.

Stella raised an eyebrow. "As in Peter Michael Lombard?"

"Could be." He released the locks with two soft clicks and slowly opened the case. "Huh."

Inside were several stacks of five and ten-dollar bills mixed in with a bunch of other papers. Mac picked one up and flipped through it. "I'd say there's about three hundred dollars here."

"Exact amount Lombard withdrew from the bank before he was killed."

Stella unzipped the backpack and yanked out a pair of pants and a t-shirt. "Extra clothes," she murmured. Seeing something at the bottom of the bag, her eyebrows knit together, and she reached inside to withdraw a file folder. "What the hell is this?"

Curiously, she flipped it open. A candid photo of Peter Lombard buying coffee at a stand sat on top. She moved that one aside. The next one showed Lombard talking on his cell phone. The one under that portrayed him with John Haskins in deep conversation. "Oh my God."

"What?" Mac gazed over her shoulder.

"He was watching them." She held up another photo of Perkins smoking next to his apartment building. "Mac, he was stalking them. Taking pictures, learning their habits."

Suddenly an idea struck her, and she took out one of the last pictures in the pile. Immediately her eyes welled with tears.

It portrayed her and Mac at a crime scene, talking animatedly as they ducked under a crime scene tape. Feeling the panic rise in her chest, she flipped to the next one. In it, she was walking down the street, holding her phone to her ear and laughing.

The picture blurred, and suddenly her head began to swim. She felt Mac grasp her shoulders in his strong hands, and she leaned back against his chest, gulping breaths of air and trying not to cry. "Shh," he shushed in her ear. "It's okay, Stel."

"No, it's not, Mac." She wiped furiously at an escaped tear trekking its way down her cheek. "He's been following me for God knows how long. Why? Why would someone want to do this?"

"Hey." Gently he spun her around to face him. His finger tilted her chin up so that she was gazing into his blue eyes, full of sincerity and sympathy. "We've got him, Stella. We've got solid evidence on at least three murders." His other hand rubbed her shoulder soothingly. "We'll find out who's behind this."

Stella nodded slowly, her gaze locked with his. She believed him with all her heart. He was Mac. He always meant what he said.

Removing his hand from her arm, he reached for the backpack again and looked inside it while she slowly composed herself. She watched him rummage around for a moment, lost in her thoughts. How did he always know what to say to her? How did he know her so well? He was the only reason she'd gotten through the past twenty-four hours, her rock, her strong place.

That was one of the things she loved about him.

Suddenly her eyes widened. She _loved_ about him? She _loved_ him?

Good Lord, she loved him. She'd known that her attraction to him wasn't a fleeting thing, but when did it turn to love? Maybe it was being in his arms, maybe it was the way he looked at her or the soft kisses he gave her or his protective nature.

Or maybe it didn't matter. Maybe she'd known it all along, for years in fact. Maybe she didn't really care when.

She jumped suddenly when she felt a hand on her arm, and she looked up into those deep blue pools that were Mac's eyes. They peered at her concernedly, and he loosened his grip on her arm.

"Are you okay, Stel?"

"Yeah," she said hastily. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just startled me, that's all."

"I think I found something. Look at this." His hand came out of the bag holding a thick envelope.

Stella looked over his shoulder. "Too thick to be a letter." A corner of the flap was slightly turned up, and she pointed at it. "There."

Mac took out a pair of tweezers and carefully separated the flap from the envelope. His blue eyes widened. "Holy…" he muttered, pulling out a thick wad of bills. Quickly he flipped through them, mentally adding it up. "Stella, these are all hundreds. There's gotta be at least ten thousand dollars in here."

"Definitely didn't come from Peter Lombard, and there's no way a junkie like Perkins had that much cash on him."

He pressed his lips into a thoughtful line and glanced at her. "I think this might be part of his cut."

"His cut? His payment?"

Mac nodded.

"Maybe the real brains behind this crap left something behind."

He withdrew an evidence bag from his case and slipped the envelope inside. "I think it's time to have a talk with Mr. McGinnis."

*****

Gathering clouds impeded the sun's rays, sending premature darkness over the city. The shadows in the precinct's interview room elongated as evening arrived, casting thick tendrils of black across the linoleum floor.

Flack sat on one side of the table, feet propped up on the metal surface. McGinnis was on the other side, watching the dark-haired detective with an icy stare, hands cuffed behind him. Flack flipped a coin high up into the air, snatching it as it came back down.

"So tell me," Flack said, catching the coin in his hand. "How does a person get into the hitman business?"

Silence answered him.

He held up a hand. "Sorry. I guess 'contract assassin' is the P.C. term for you guys now, huh?"

The man just glared.

"Kinda piques my curiosity, y'know? Always kinda wondered if you guys just walk up to some dude on the street and say, 'Hey, got anybody you want me to knock off?' I mean, how does all that work?"

McGinnis shifted in his chair, but that was the only response he gave.

Suddenly the door to interrogation swung open with a creak, its blind knocking lightly against the window. Mac stepped into the gradually darkening room, a file folder cradled in his hand. His eyes were flint in the twilight shadows. Immediately Flack got up from his chair and leaned against the two-way mirror behind him. Mac lowered his frame into the vacant seat, eyes never leaving the man before him.

The tension in the room was palpable.

"Eric McGinnis," Mac said finally, placing the file on the table in front of him. "You've got quite a history. Former Provisional IRA fighter turned contract assassin. But you know, for a contract killer you're not very smart."

McGinnis stayed silent, though the line of his jaw tightened.

Slowly Mac pulled out three pictures of three bullets from his folder. He spread them across the table in front of the Irishman. "The ME pulled this slug from Peter Lombard," he said, pointing at one.

His finger moved to the next one. "This one from Willie Perkins."

Then the next. "This one from that cop who shot you." He lifted his gaze, locking into McGinnis'. "My lab's testing your gun right now. And I'm willing to stake my career on these three bullets matching the ones from your gun. Not to mention the fact I've got your blood at one crime scene and a fiber that matches your glove at another."

The man still said nothing.

"One thing I learned about bastards like you is that you're only concerned about one thing." He placed his hands on the table and leaned forward. "Self-preservation. So I'm gonna give you a chance. Tell us who hired you, and I'll ask the DA to take the death penalty off the table."

He still said nothing.

Mac's blue eyes flashed as he slammed more pictures on the table. "Lombard. Perkins. Umber." The sound of his fist connecting with the table echoed in the room as he slammed the photo of Stella onto the table. "And Stella Bonasera. Four people connected with Jeremy Krasinski. Was he the one that hired you to kill off the witnesses in his case?"

"I think I'll exercise my right to stay silent, if y'don't mind."

"You're a coward." McGinnis' eyes narrowed at Mac, but the CSI kept right on going. "You kill people out of pure selfish greed and your own sick pleasure. What? Does looking them in the eyes get you off?"

The muscles in McGinnis' good arm flexed, but he stayed silent.

"You shot a cop, Eric. A good cop, with a wife and kids that will never see their daddy again. I don't much like it when people go around killing cops, and I especially don't like it when people take potshots at my partner!"

McGinnis' head snapped up, and surprise flickered across his cold eyes. "Potshots?" he echoed.

"Yeah. That sniper job you botched in the Sirius Building? You nearly killed me and my partner!" Mac slammed his fist into the table, and McGinnis jumped. "Wake up! You're facing three life sentences, and the only way you can ever hope to see parole is if you tell me who hired you. Now!"

Suddenly McGinnis clamped his mouth shut and stared defiantly at Mac. Silence as thick as wool settled over the room.

Mac kept his gaze on the Irishman for a long moment. Finally he shoved the pictures closer to McGinnis. "I'm gonna ask you one more time. Who hired you to kill those people?"

The Irishman straightened to his full height in his seat and glared at Mac. Blue eyes glittered coldly in the low light, and the strong line of his jaw tightened. "I think it's time for me to speak to a lawyer now."

They stared at each other for a few tense moments until Mac jerked his head in Flack's direction.

Wordlessly the younger detective stepped forward and grabbed McGinnis' good arm. "Let's go," Flack said quietly, leading the Irishman into the main squadroom.

Mac blew out a breath and placed his hands on the metal table, regaining his composure. Staring in the eyes of the man who'd almost taken Stella's life had nearly made him lose it for the second time in as many days. He'd looked into the eyes of many a killer. But none were as cold as that one. Not even Darius, who'd brutally murdered thirteen people in two states within seventy-two hours. He'd had a reason behind his killing spree, no matter how self-absorbed it had been. This man, though, did what he did out of pure greed.

He was the embodiment of pure, unadulterated evil.

The door swung open again, and he glanced up. Stella stood there, framed by the doorway. Quietly she stepped into the room and closed the door behind her with a soft click. She turned to face him, her expression unreadable even to him. He straightened and turned to face her, arms hanging at his side, blue eyes locked with hers.

They stood like that for several long moments, the tension between them hanging thick in the darkening room.

"Well, that was a bust."

A corner of his mouth turned up slightly. "Not exactly. I know he didn't take that shot at you and me."

Stella's eyes widened. "How?"

"The surprise on his face was genuine. He's a murderer, but he didn't try to kill you."

"You're sure?"

"We didn't find a rifle amongst his possessions, did we? With the kind of pride he takes in his weapons, there's no way he would've tossed it. And there's the time factor. There's no way he could've made it from downtown Manhattan to Astoria in half an hour."

"And his gun and blood were at the scene in Astoria."

He nodded, rubbing his forehead thoughtfully. "Which means someone else was behind the sniper attack. Possibly the person that hired him."

Stella frowned. "Maybe the person that hired him paid two people for it."

"Maybe. But I don't like trying to solve cases on maybes."

"I know. Any way we could get him to talk?"

He shook his head. "Even with a deal, he won't talk. No matter how low we go on the sentence, the DA can't get rid of three homicide trials in three different states. Regardless of what he tells us, he's spending a long time in prison."

"Damn."

"My thoughts exactly." He looked at her, noticing for the first time all day the dark circles under her eyes and the weariness in her green orbs. "You look exhausted."

She smiled tiredly. "Long few days. I'd really like to just go take a shower and sleep for half a day."

"Back to the hotel? Why don't you stay in the lab?"

"Mac, the only spare clothes I have are in a suitcase at the hotel. I'm running on three hours of sleep. I've barely sat down in the last three days." She ran a hand through her tangled curls. "And I probably smell awful."

He smiled. "That's absolutely impossible."

Stella gave him a surprised look, and he responded by raising an eyebrow. "I'm a big girl, Mac," she said finally.

"I know you're a big girl, but I'd like to keep you around a little longer."

She smiled and touched his shoulder. "Thanks for the sentiment. But I'll be fine."

"At least let me drive you back to the hotel."

"You're going to stay around there while I shower and eat and take a quick nap?" Her eyebrow rose skeptically. "I know you, Mac. You're going to be bored out of your mind."

He wasn't so sure about that, but he didn't think that she'd appreciate such a comment at that moment.

"If it'll make you feel better, I'll call you when I get there. And I'll keep my piece on me the whole time. And instead of taking a nap there, I'll come straight back here after I freshen up. Okay?"

Mac pursed his lips thoughtfully. He didn't like her going back to the hotel alone, not while there was still a potential killer on the loose. But she didn't look like she was going to back down from this argument. And as tired as she was, she wasn't in the mood to be contradicted.

Finally he sighed. "You keep your piece on you at all times?"

"I promise."

"And those detectives are gonna be in the lobby just in case."

She grinned. "Wouldn't have it any other way."

He smiled despite himself and took her hand in his. It was warm against his flesh, and he loosely gripped the slender fingers in his own. "May I at least drive you back to the lab?"

Stella pretended to think about it for a moment then nodded emphatically. "Since you put it like that."

*****

Lightning flashed across the night sky, followed by the low rumble of thunder a few seconds later. Mac sank into his desk chair wearily. He rubbed his forehead, wincing at the twinge of an oncoming headache. It truly had been a long few days.

He checked his watch. McGinnis was on his way to central booking to be charged with three homicides. And Stella was probably getting close to her hotel. Letting her go had been harder than he thought. His heart had skipped a beat when she'd turned around in the elevator to her car and given him a smile.

Come to think of it, his heart had been skipping beats a lot lately. Especially when she was around.

Good God, what was happening to him? The last time a woman had made that happen was when he was with Claire. Even Peyton hadn't initiated that kind of response.

Maybe it had something to do with the fact that he'd nearly lost her. Stella had been a huge part of his life since Claire died – even before, to some extent. During the last few weeks, he'd been filled with joy every time he saw her. And then when she left, he missed her, despite the fact that he knew he'd see her in a few hours. He'd only felt that way about another woman once in his life, and he'd ended up marrying her.

He sighed and leaned back in his chair, trying to think this over scientifically. Science was based on previous observation, testing, and conclusion. He'd observed that what he felt for Stella now was similar to what he'd felt for Claire then. And he supposed that the night they'd spent together on the couch was a pretty good test for him to know that those feelings weren't passing.

So the conclusion was obvious.

He was falling for his best friend.

His eyes widened at that, and his hand stilled against his forehead.

He was falling in love with Stella. Stella, his best friend, his colleague. And it wasn't going away, no matter how hard he tried to tell himself that it wasn't rational.

Then again, maybe it _was_ perfectly rational after all. She balanced him out better than anyone else in the world. And there was no one else that Claire would've approved of more.

Mac Taylor had fallen in love with Stella Bonasera.

A sudden knock at his door startled him, and he looked up, slightly perturbed at having such a monumental moment interrupted. But the haunted look on Adam's face made his frustration instantly disappear.

Pushing his epiphany from his mind, Mac sat up straight and said, "What've you got, Adam?"

"Uh, two things." The tech crossed the office to Mac's desk and stood in front of it. "The gun you took from Eric McGinnis matched the bullets from all three homicides."

"No surprise there. What else?"

"I processed that envelope you sent over. Now the bills were non-sequential, so it's impossible to tell which bank they came from. But we caught a lucky break for once. The suspect decided to lick the envelope, rather than using a sponge or something. Don't really know why… I mean, that glue's gross…"

"We got a hit?"

"Not exactly." Adam handed the laptop to his box. "DNA came back to a filial match in the database."

Mac's eyes widened and he looked up sharply at the tech. "Thirteen alleles in common with Jeremy Krasinski?"

Adam nodded.

Mac leaped to his feet, pushing his chair back and grabbing his gun out of his desk. "Call Flack. Tell him we got our perp and to meet me at Robert Krasinski's restaurant."

"Couple steps ahead of you, Mac." The familiar New York accent caused Mac to glance up just as Flack entered his office. "I took the liberty of callin' a friend at the mayor's office who happened to be at Krasinski's restaurant. Krasinski didn't show up until after nine."

"Plenty of time to get from Manhattan to Brooklyn after shooting at me and Stella." Mac snatched his coat from the back of his chair and hurried out of his office toward the elevator, Flack following close behind him.

"I called his restaurant. Krasinski took a long lunch and hasn't been back. So I did a little more diggin'. He's got an apartment on the northeast side of Central Park."

Mac jabbed at the down button for the elevator and put his hands on his hips. "Time to bring this son of a bitch to justice."

*****

The door beeped at Stella and unlocked with a soft click. She pulled her keycard out of the lock and slipped it into her pocket as she pushed the door open. The curtains were drawn so the room was dark and cool.

Stella sighed tiredly and let the door close behind her. Those few hours of sleep hadn't helped much, and she was running on pure adrenaline. She didn't know how she'd managed to convince Mac to let her come back here, but she was glad he'd assented. A shower would be just the thing she needed to wake her up.

Besides, she could think a little better in there without knowing he was so close by.

Her realization earlier had nearly knocked her off her feet, though she supposed it was a long time in coming. She'd recognized the early signs of it days before; hell, even perhaps months before. But she didn't know what to do about it. And she certainly didn't know how he felt about her. Maybe he wasn't ready for another relationship. Peyton had broken his heart again, and despite how strong he tried to be, she knew when it came to women and relationships he was fragile.

Not that she was much better.

She sighed again and walked out of the hallway into the larger bedroom, unhooking her badge from her belt.

Suddenly she felt cool metal press into the skin of her neck, and she froze. It was cylindrical in shape, and immediately she recognized it as the barrel of a gun.

The next thing she heard was an icy voice that sent shivers down her spine.

"Welcome back, Detective Bonasera."


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N:** Oh my word. What an insane day. Eight hour classes really, really suck. And it doesn't help that my professor's rabbit trails have rabbit trails. Seriously, the amount of notes he gave took only about 2 hours. And the rest was just talking. Okay, now that I'm done ranting, I figured I'd get this chapter up before I have to read 80 pages of material by tomorrow and study for an exam. I really hope you guys enjoy this. One more chapter left, which will hopefully bring a very satisfying conclusion to all of this. Thank you all so much for the reviews from the last chapter; really, you've made all the months of working on this worthwhile. Please, let me know what you guys think about this one!

**Many, many thanks** to Lily as always for the encouragement, discussion, and beta for this.

**Chapter 12**

"NYPD! Open up!"

The wooden door cracked as Flack's foot connected with its center. With one more swift kick, it splintered from the frame and flew open into the darkened apartment. Mac entered first and quickly crossed the living room toward the kitchen, sweeping his gun back and forth.

Meanwhile, Flack turned down a hallway leading toward the back bedroom. He slowly pushed the door open to a bedroom darker than the living room. In the blackness, he could make out the silhouette of a bed, a dresser, and a closet. He frowned. Closet…

Quickly and quietly he crossed the room, moving as silently as a mouse. Cradling his gun in one hand, he reached for the doorknob to the closet with the other. He listened closely for just a second. Then he yanked open the door.

It was empty.

He breathed a sigh of relief as Mac shouted "Clear!" from the other room. He removed his flashlight from his belt and clicked it on. The beam alighted on a dark shape stuffed into the corner, and Flack held a glove in his hand before reaching in to pull it out. His hand grasped the cloth handle of a big black duffel bag, and metal clacked against metal when he snatched it free from the closet. Flack frowned.

He turned on his heel and strode down the hall toward the living room. Mac had turned on one of the lamps, illuminating the clean space. The CSI was now bending over a desk in a corner, riffling through some papers covering the wooden desktop. "Hey, I think I found something in the closet," Flack said.

Mac turned around, and the detective held up the duffel bag.

"Somethin' metallic in here."

"Open it up." Mac grabbed a stack of papers from the desk and walked toward the couch. Flack tossed the bag onto the sofa and, using the latex glove, unzipped it.

"Whoa," he muttered, peering into the bag.

He stuck his hand inside it and pulled out a rifle scope. Setting that down on the couch, he pulled out the long, slender barrel of a sniper rifle and held it up to the light. Mac's blue eyes widened, and the detective reached in one more time to free the black magazine full of rounds from the bag.

Flack handed it to the CSI. "I think it's safe to say we found our mystery sniper."

Mac held up the magazine to the light. "Three-eighty Winchester. Same type round Hawkes removed from the wall of the lab."

"I guess that clinches it." He watched as Mac flipped through the stacks of paper. Suddenly the CSI's eyes widened as he gripped one piece of paper with some handwriting on it. The rest of the papers fluttered to the hardwood floor.

"What?" Flack asked, suddenly concerned.

Mac looked up from the paper, his face as white as a sheet and a horrified expression in his blue eyes. Silently he held out the sheet of paper for Flack to read. The detective leaned forward a little, straining to read the messy handwriting.

Suddenly Flack jerked his head up and gaped at his friend. "Is that…"

Mac threw the paper to the floor and ripped the gloves off his hands, hastening to the door before breaking out into a jog. "He's gone after her."

*****

The cool metal of the gun stayed against the back of her neck. She could hear her heart ricochet against her ribcage, thumping louder and louder as its rate increased with every breath she took. The thought of slamming her elbow into the stranger's stomach flitted across her mind, but his next words dismissed that.

"You even think about going for that gun, I'll kill you."

So much for that idea.

Stella slowly raised her hands just above her head, praying he wouldn't decide to fire that gun. Her cell phone chirped at her from her back pocket, but she didn't dare reach for it. Not with that gun still pressed against her skin. She knew it was Mac calling her. Perhaps he'd discovered who the killer was.

"Slowly remove your holster and toss it on the bed," the voice directed.

Wordlessly she complied, unclipping her holster and holding it high over her head before letting it drop onto the mattress. An audible sigh of relief came from the man behind her, and she resisted the urge to twist her head around to see who it was. Something about him was so familiar, but she just couldn't place it.

"Take two steps forward and then turn around. Nice 'n easy."

Nice and easy. Right.

But she did so anyway, her hands still raised in the air. Slowly she turned to face her attacker. Though she couldn't make out his features, she saw a shadow take two steps toward the lamp by her bed. With an audible click, the room lit up.

He was dressed in black from head to toe except for the menacing-looking Beretta gripped in his right hand. His dark eyes glittered, and the expression of hatred on his handsome face took her aback. "Detective Stella Bonasera," he said, smiling mirthlessly. "You haven't changed a bit. Not in twelve years. You know, very few women age as gracefully as you. My mother certainly didn't, God rest her soul."

"Who are you?" she asked.

"You mean you don't recognize me?" He tsked at her, shaking his head as if he was surprised.

"No, I don't," she replied truthfully. Though he did look familiar…

He laughed at her and sat down on the edge of the bed. "You don't remember. No, of course you wouldn't. It was all rather inconsequential to you."

Stella furrowed her brow but didn't say anything.

"Well, let me refresh your memory. I'll give you a clue, and you try to guess, okay?"

Personally, she didn't think she had much of a choice.

"Let's start with a date. October 12, 1997."

She stayed silent.

"No? All right, let's move to a place. Part Fifty-six, Manhattan County Courthouse."

Still she said nothing.

Finally the mocking smile slid off his face, and his eyes hardened. "You testified in the trial of _The People of the State of New York versus Jeremy Krasinski_, charged with murder in the second degree. I was sitting behind the defense table, watching as my brother was convicted of murdering a New York City police officer."

Her eyes widened, and Stella bit back a gasp. "Jeremy's your brother? You're Robert?"

He smiled coldly and shrugged his shoulders. "So now you remember."

Stella cursed silently. This definitely wasn't looking good. Her phone chirped at her again, and she ignored it. It was probably Mac calling her, and she supposed he'd figured out who the real killer was.

Now would be the time to put on some false bravado and pray it worked. "You know, by now my partner's figured everything out. And there are two plainclothes detectives sitting right outside this hotel, and they're on their way up right now."

A smirk she definitely didn't like spread across his face. "Actually, they're a little preoccupied at the moment."

A chill ran down Stella's spine. "What the hell did you do to them?"

He sighed and checked his watch. "Right about now they're standing in front of their Maker."

_Oh my God_. This guy was insane. He was actually insane. And he wasn't going to leave until she was lying dead on that hotel room floor.

She only hoped Mac would get there in time.

*****

Mac swore and nearly threw his phone against the windshield of Flack's car. The siren wailed plaintively, but it seemed like no one was heeding its call. Lightning tore across the sky, and a few drops of rain thumped against the windshield. Great. This was just perfect. "No answer from Stella or the plainclothes guys," he said. Panic was starting to well up in his chest.

"Something must've happened to them," Flack answered, picking up his radio and pressing a button. "This is Detective Flack, I need backup to the Paramount Hotel, corner of Third and Forty-Sixth. I've got a ten-thirteen in progress, officer in trouble."

"This isn't good."

"She'll be fine, Mac," Flack replied, hunched over the steering wheel as he took another sharp left-hand turn, trying to avoid the traffic. "She can take care of herself."

"Against a homicidal maniac who's out to kill her?" Mac retorted. "Can't you drive any faster?"

"I'm goin' as fast as I can!"

"Go faster!"

Flack shook his head and jerked the wheel to the right this time. Tires squealed in protest, and more than a few horns honked loudly as the car fishtailed and then straightened out. More drops of rain pounded against the windshield, turning into a torrential downpour within seconds as the sky opened up. Flack flipped on the wipers, their constant _swish_ mingling with the percussive rain. Another flash of lightning tore open the sky, followed quickly by an explosion of thunder that rocked Mac to his very core.

"This is all my fault," he murmured. "I shouldn't have let her go. I should've made her stay at the lab."

"You can't blame yourself for this, Mac."

"It's my fault. I should've known that this guy was the one. The signs were all there, for God's sake!"

"You couldn't've known that he was gonna go after Stel. None of this is your fault!"

Mac turned to stare out the window at the drops of water sliding down the glass toward the pavement. This wasn't happening. Surely this wasn't happening. He couldn't lose another person he loved, not like this. Not without telling her the way he felt about her. It took him all this time to figure out that he loved her, and he couldn't bear the thought of letting her leave this world without knowing.

The image of her dead body lying on that hotel room floor passed through his mind, and he slammed his fist against the window.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Flack jump and glance at him. For a moment, the only sound that filled the car was the mournful call of the siren mingling with the hammering of the rain.

"You really love her, don't you?"

Flack's quiet query startled him, and he looked at the younger man sharply. Finally he sighed and rubbed his forehead with two fingers. "Yeah. I do."

He did. He really did. It was the first time he'd ever admitted it aloud, and instead of freaking him out like he thought it would, he felt relieved, free almost. He _did_ love her.

The detective's blue eyes were fixed on the road, and his hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles were white. Mac knew that next to him, Stella was closest to Flack, opening up to him after Frankie attacked her and going to see him when he was suspected of murder. Briefly it crossed his mind that this had to be killing Flack too.

Suddenly Flack looked at Mac, his blue eyes set determinedly and his jaw clenched. Mac heard the engine whirr louder, and he looked down to see Flack's foot pressing the accelerator down farther. "We'll make it, Mac," the detective whispered. "We're gonna make it."

*****

Stella took a deep breath, trying to calm her wildly beating heart. Outside thunder cracked and boomed, mingling with the pounding of rain against her hotel room window. Inside, Krasinski still sat on the edge of the bed, his malicious gaze unwavering, just like the pistol gripped in his hand. "So you're the one behind all this?" she asked.

He smiled proudly. "Impressive, huh?"

_More like sick_, she thought to herself. But she figured it was wise not to say that aloud. Mac had to be on his way now, especially since she didn't pick up her phone. He knew she always picked up. She had to stall somehow until he arrived.

"You hired McGinnis to stalk and kill the people connected with your brother's trial?"

"Oh, you found the pictures." Krasinski shook his head. "Actually I took those. Followed you all for weeks to get a sense of your habits. All four of you were really very predictable, actually. Lombard met that friend of his on the exact same corner, that friend bought from the exact same dealer. Perkins was always lookin' for his fix."

"Why'd you hire McGinnis if you were the one that took the shot at me?"

"I got a call from my brother about two NYPD cops visiting him in Sing-Sing. Time was running out, you were closing in, and I had a mission to do. I was Army Special Forces, expert marksman ranking, so the shot was a piece of cake."

"But you missed."

He shrugged. "Slight miscalculation. No matter, though. This way I get to take my time with you. The last one."

A shiver ran down her spine at the salacious glance he gave her. Oh, she hoped Mac was getting close, because this was going downhill fast.

She gestured at the double bed opposite him. "Can I sit down?"

Krasinski thought for a moment and shrugged. "Don't try anything funny. Keep your hands where I can see 'em."

Wordlessly she sat down on the edge of the bed across from him and placed her hands palms down on her legs. Rain slapped harder against the window, its staccato percussion loud and obnoxious. After several moments of silence, Stella took a deep breath and said, "You know, one thing about all of this puzzles me."

He looked at her, curiosity reflected in his dark eyes. At least she had his attention.

"It's been twelve years since your brother was convicted. Why now?"

His lips tightened and his eyes narrowed. For a moment, Stella regretted asking that question, and she waited for an answer with bated breath.

Finally Krasinski said in a low voice, "Do you have any siblings, Detective?"

"No. I don't."

"Then you don't know what it's like to watch your brother get convicted of murder. You don't know what it's like to watch your mother so torn up with grief that she can barely get out of bed. You don't know what it's like to watch her slowly waste away to nothing until you're glad she dies."

Stella couldn't say anything. She actually felt a little bit of pity for this guy. "When did she die?"

"A year ago. After she died, I filed an appeal on my brother's behalf."

"But it was denied."

He nodded. "I knew I had to do something. I had to get justice for my brother. For my mother."

"Justice?" Stella shook her head. "Robert, your brother killed a police officer while he was selling drugs."

"My brother made mistakes!" Krasinski's voice was slowly rising, and she could see anger flash across his eyes. "He was just a stupid kid who made a mistake! Do you know what they do to him inside that prison? On the days he's not getting raped, he's getting beaten. Two months ago, someone made a shive out of a toothbrush and tried to stab him."

Stella took a deep breath, collecting her thoughts. She could see the man's chest heaving and the fury smoldering in his eyes, and she knew she had to be careful with him.

"You really think killing the four people who testified against him will get him out of prison or fix what's going on in there?"

"They got what they deserved," Krasinski snarled. "Lombard was a cad and a drug addict. Perkins sold dope to kids."

"That's not justice, Robert. That's revenge. You want to get back at them for what happened to your brother, but the truth is that it doesn't change anything."

Suddenly a loud banging echoed through the room, and both their heads snapped toward the door as they leaped to their feet. "Stella?" Mac's familiar voice called. "Stella, answer me!"

Krasinski turned to Stella and tightened his grip on the door. "Not a word."

"Stella!" Mac's frantic pounding quickened.

"He's not going away," she murmured to Krasinski. "You can either kill me or give up, but he's going to come in no matter what."

"Fine." He reached out and grabbed her arm. She cried out in pain as he yanked her toward him, and Mac pounded harder at the door. "He gets to watch as you die."

Krasinski pressed the gun to her temple and wrapped an arm around her neck just as a loud beep sounded from the door. The heavy wooden door flung open, and Mac rushed into the room with his weapon drawn and ready, Flack right behind him. His eyes locked with hers, and she tried to reassure him with her gaze. He seemed to understand, because his glance flickered from her to the man holding a gun to her head.

"Let her go, Krasinski," he said slowly and evenly. Because she knew him so well, she caught the tiny tremor in his voice that betrayed his fear. "We found the rifle you used to shoot at Detective Bonasera. We have your DNA on an envelope of money from Eric McGinnis. We know everything."

"Then there's really nothing for me to lose, is there?"

"Put the gun down and let her go. I can talk to the DA, get you a reduced sentence."

"I'm not going to jail."

Mac's finger tightened on the trigger. "There's no other option, Krasinski. Let her go."

The barrel of the gun pressed further into her temple, and Stella couldn't help gasping. "Not gonna happen, Detective. Now you'll know what it's like to watch someone you love die."

"Robert," Stella said quickly, locking her gaze with Mac's again. He gave her an odd look, but he let her continue. "Robert, I'm so sorry for what you've been through and for what your brother's been through. But this isn't justice."

"Shut up!" he growled.

"Your brother killed a good cop with a wife and a new baby at home. And you took away a little girl's dream of having her daddy walk her down the aisle at her wedding."

"Shut up!" he repeated, louder this time. His hand started to shake, and she glanced at Mac again. His eyes locked with hers, silently telling her to keep talking. Whatever she was saying was making a difference.

"This is revenge. Revenge for your brother and your mother, and I can understand. Really, I can. But would they say about this? Would your mom want you to just throw away your life like this?"

For a moment, the only sound in the room was the thunder of rain against the glass mingling with Krasinski's heavy breathing. Mac looked at her again, silently encouraging her to keep going.

"What you're doing doesn't help your brother. It's not going to get him out of prison, and it's not going to change the past. But you can change your future. You can let me go and not spend the rest of your life in prison."

Silence settled over the room, broken only by an occasional rumble of thunder. Stella held her breath, keeping her eyes locked with Mac's. There was so much she needed to tell him, so much she needed to confess. He needed to know how she felt, after so many years of cautious flirting and furtive glances. Even if he couldn't reciprocate, he needed to know.

Suddenly his grip around her throat loosened slightly, and she felt the gun decrease a little pressure on her temple. She glanced at Mac again, and he nodded barely perceptibly.

Taking advantage of his loose grip, she reared back and slammed her elbow into Krasinski's solar plexus.

_Whoosh!_

Air rushed out of him, and he doubled over, grunting in pain. Stella twisted out of his arms, and he reached out for her, grabbing her arm and yanking her to the floor. "You bitch!" he growled.

Slightly stunned, she fell to the ground with an _oof_ and looked up just in time to see him recover his grip on his gun. The barrel turned toward her menacingly. His finger was poised on trigger, so that all he had to do was give it a little squeeze. Her eyes locked with his. The irises burned with hate and anger.

Oh, God, she was going to die.

Two gunshots suddenly exploded from the other side of the room.

As if in slow motion, she watched Krasinski jerked twice like a marionette on a string. Two crimson stains appeared on his shirt. His eyes widened, staring at her, and slowly rolled back into his head. Then he crumpled into a heap on the floor as if his strings had suddenly been cut. She heard a soft groan from him and then he was quiet.

She looked up at Mac. Everything else seemed to dissipate except for the echo of the shots still reverberating off the thin walls. A thin tendril of smoke still twisted from his outstretched weapon.

Suddenly his gaze locked with hers, gray-blue connecting to emerald green.

And immediately his gun fell to the floor with another soft thud.

He took two huge steps toward her and gathered her in his arms. Stella wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her face into his shoulder. She breathed deeply, inhaling that reassuring scent. He pressed a kiss into her neck, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

And as he held her close, for the first time in days, she was actually safe.


	13. Epilogue

**A/N:** Wow. So here we come to the last chapter of this story. In a way, I'm sad it's over, but I'm also kind of glad. I'll be working on other projects throughout the semester that hopefully you'll enjoy. Thank you guys so much for sticking with me through this. It's the longest story I've ever written, but I hope you've enjoyed it. Thank you to all who reviewed, whether it was anonymous or signed; your words of encouragement really helped me so much. To those who added this to their favorites and alerts, thank you all too... seeing those in my inbox really boosted my confidence as well. And to those who read, I hope this was an exciting and satisfying ride for you all.

And last but definitely not least, to Lily - thank you so much for being patient with me and offering suggestions and words of encouragement. I greatly appreciate your time and effort in reading over this. I couldn't have asked for a better beta.

I hope this brings this endeavor to a satisfactory conclusion. It's a little short, but I hope it's satisfying nonetheless. And as always, let me know what you think about it!

* * *

**Epilogue**

"An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind." – Mohandas Gandhi

Spring had finally arrived in New York City.

As the spring thunderstorm passed, a cool breeze twisted and twirled through the thin city streets, winding down every alley and around every corner. It whistled through the trees in Central Park, rustling the budding leaves. In the west, the sun slowly sank beyond the horizon, turning the few clouds in the sky to a deep violet. Rain water babbled happily on its way down the streets through the gutter and into the storm drains.

The meteorologists on the television were actually predicting warmer temperatures and lots of sun for the rest of the week.

Imagine that.

The street outside the Paramount Hotel was crawling with police officers, uniformed and plainclothes alike. Red and blue lights danced off the drops of water sliding down the glass walls of the lobby. Yellow tape stretched across the entrance of the hotel, and barricades had been erected on either end of the street.

Stella sat quietly in the back of one of the squad cars, not really observing all the hubbub going on around her. Though physically she was fine, she knew that putting all this behind her would take some time. Mac would probably have her take some time off from work, no matter how hard she protested. Truthfully, though, she thought it was for the best. Kenny's funeral was in a couple of days, and she could take the time to spend with his family. She needed it, and she knew they needed it.

A side door a few feet away opened suddenly, and she looked up to see the coroner's assistant wheel a gurney through the entrance. It clattered noisily to the pavement, and the black body bag on top shifted just a little. Stella took a deep breath and closed her eyes. In her mind's eye she could still see Krasinski's body jerk and twitch grotesquely, the reverberations of the gunshots pounding on her eardrums.

"Stel."

The familiar, soft voice caused her eyes to pop open. Mac was standing in front of her, a concerned look on his face. He'd ditched the protective vest, and the sleeves of his dress shirt were rolled up his forearms. Just like they were a few nights before, when her world was much less complicated.

Unbidden, a smile touched the corners of her mouth, and he took a step closer to her.

"You okay?" he asked.

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly before nodding. "I will be." She noticed a couple of detectives in suits milling around by the barricade, and she frowned. "Did you see IAB's here?"

Mac rolled his eyes and sighed. "Yeah. They got statements from me and Flack. Now I think they want to do a little damage control."

"They'll probably want to talk to me next."

"Probably."

"Speaking of Flack, where is he?"

"On the phone." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "He's got detectives on their way to Sing-Sing to talk to Jeremy Krasinski."

"Was he involved?"

Mac shrugged a shoulder and looked at her, his eyes clouded with something she couldn't place. "We haven't found anything to say he is. I can't think of any other person that would have as much stake in this, but there's no evidence implicating him. We may never really know."

Stella nodded slowly. "Robert was careful."

"Exceedingly careful. There's nothing in his apartment that even suggests a conspiracy."

Movement behind Mac caught her eye, and she looked over his shoulder to see two more gurneys with two more big black bags roll by, pushed by a pair of coroner's assistants. Her eyes followed them as they disappeared around the corner.

A rough hand touched hers, breaking her out of her thoughts, and she looked up again into Mac's concerned blue irises. "The two cops assigned to protect me?" she asked.

He nodded. "We found them in the alley behind the hotel. Both were shot once. Flack thinks Krasinski lured them out there somehow and caught them from behind."

"How could the line between justice and revenge be blurred so much? How could he have hated us so much?"

Mac squeezed her hand gently and stepped closer to her so that their knees were touching. "For him, losing control was too much. He thought that the only way he could save someone he loved was to kill those that had put him in the situation."

"So much for personal responsibility."

"Justice is always about taking the consequences for your actions, letting the punishment fit the crime. We all make mistakes, and we are all responsible for whatever they bring." Mac paused for a moment, squeezing her hand again. "He decided that he was going to be the arbiter of justice. And whenever we take that role for ourselves rather than weighing the evidence, people always get hurt."

Stella looked down for a moment. "Just… so much death with this. Six people lost their lives, Mac."

"It's not your fault, Stella. None of this is on you. You know that, right?"

She gave him a half-smile, still not looking up at him. "My head does. It just might take my heart a little while to catch up."

His hand left hers and settled on her cheek. He brushed the pad of his thumb against her skin, and her gaze locked with his. "Let's get outta here," he said softly. "I think we need to talk."

Her eyes never left his as she nodded slowly. He helped her down from the back of the ambulance then placed his hand on the small of her back as he led her past the police cars and barricades. They walked slowly, his hand never straying far from her back, ushering her down the street. She could feel his warmth, and she marveled again at how he made her feel safe, protected. She wanted to feel that way with him forever.

They stopped next to a railing overlooking Rockefeller Plaza, where the Christmas tree and ice rink had been just a few months before. People hustled and bustled around them in the city that never stopped, but at least here they were safe from prying eyes.

She placed her elbows against the metal railing, the cool breeze lifting her curls from her shoulders. The metal bent slightly as Mac copied her position, staring down at the Plaza. The people below them carried on as usual, and the chatter from a couple thousand voices on their cell phones floated up toward them. "Thank you, Mac," she whispered.

He looked at her, eyebrow cocked.

"For saving my life. Again."

A small smile appeared at the corners of his mouth. "You're welcome."

"There's something… I wanted to tell you."

His eyebrow rose even higher, and he flashed a dimple at her. "There is?"

Stella nodded. "I've been thinking a lot about… about us. Our friendship."

Mac straightened and stuffed his hands into his pockets. "So have I."

"You have?"

He nodded. "I've been thinking about what you said the other night. About life getting away from you." Mac raked a hand through his hair nervously, and she couldn't help but smile. He was absolutely adorable when he was nervous. "Stella, I almost lost you twice in the last twenty-four hours. Seeing you with that gun against your head… it almost killed me."

Her smile faded, and she bit her lip. His walls, so carefully constructed around his emotions, were slowly crumbling.

"I can't lose you, Stel. It would kill me if something happened to you. You're the only person who sustains me, who keeps me going in this job day after day."

"Mac, what are you saying?"

He looked at her with those stormy eyes of his, and she saw that wall completely fall away. They blazed with an intensity she hadn't seen from him in their ten years of friendship. That moment was the first time she ever believed in the old saying that the eyes are the window to the soul.

"I'm saying that I want to be the first face you see when you wake up in the morning. I want to be the last thing you see before you go to sleep at night. I want to hold you when you have a bad day, laugh with you when you have a good day, celebrate with you when you solve a tough case."

She thought her heart was going to explode from her chest, it was pounding so hard. Her mouth opened and closed several times, trying to come up with a response to his sudden confession, but her brain seemed to just shut down.

He took two steps toward her, pinning her to the railing. One of his hands slowly sneaked around her waist, pulling her into his body.

"Stella, you're a strong woman. I've always admired that about you. You can take care of yourself better than anyone else I know. But sometimes you have to let others take care of you." His other hand came up and gently caressed her cheek.

"What about Sinclair? And all the rules?"

"Screw Sinclair," he said forcefully, and she would've laughed if he hadn't had that serious look in his eyes. "Rules are meant to protect the lab. You and I together won't cause any problems. We're too good for that, and this is too right."

His hand trailed down her jaw to her chin, tilting it up so that her eyes met his.

"I love you, Stella," he whispered sincerely. "The only reason that I can think of for us not being together is if you don't feel the same way. Please. Let me take care of you."

She could've melted right then. The last five days flashed through her mind. Him leaning against her desk. Working the Lombard scene with him. Him saving her life. Waking up wrapped in his arms. Melting into his embrace when she needed him most.

If there was anything this case taught her, it was to make the most of the time given to her. Mac was a gift to her, a man who made her feel more cherished than she'd ever felt in her life. And she wasn't about to squander that.

A smile slowly spread across her face, and she lifted her arms to wrap them around his neck, fingers playing with the short hairs at the nape of his neck.

"I love you, too, Mac," she replied softly.

He smiled widely at her, and she felt giddy all of the sudden, like a little girl before the first day of school. But the giddiness soon disappeared as he leaned down just a little. Her eyes fluttered closed as his lips cautiously brushed against the corner of her mouth, and she gasped. As if emboldened by her response, he let his lips drift over hers to the other corner. Then he gently kissed her bottom lip, setting them on fire with just a simple touch.

Slowly he pulled away, and she let out a little whimper at the loss of his touch. Her eyes opened to meet his, basking in the warmth of the love she found in his gaze.

Then suddenly his hand left her face to rest on her hip, and his lips crashed against hers in a kiss that stole the very breath from her lungs. He pulled her body flush to his as his lips devoured hers in a way that was passionate yet surprisingly gentle. Her arms wrapped around his neck as she returned his kiss with equal fervor, threading her fingers through his hair. Such passion from this man, who had kept his emotions so carefully bottled up, astounded her. Yet it felt so right.

Finally their kisses became less passionate and more tempered until she slowly pulled away. Mac rested his forehead against hers, chest heaving. Her eyes slowly opened, meeting his, reading the ardor and contentment there. To think, it had taken them so long to get to that point. But here it was finally right. It was logical and rational and emotional, all rolled into one. Here, in his arms, she knew she was safe.

Mac smiled softly at her with kiss-swollen lips, his blue eyes twinkling. "Remind me again why it took us ten years to do that?" he rasped.

"I think it had something to do with my lousy taste in men and your workaholic tendencies," she retorted with a grin.

He laughed and gently kissed her again. "Something like that."

She wrapped her arms around his waist and leaned against him, watching the clouds in the distance continue to roll away. The sun had disappeared behind the buildings, draping the city in its twilight glow.

Suddenly she looked up at him, shivering slightly when her eyes met his. "Hey, I just remembered something."

"Oh, no. We caught the bad guy. No more remembering things."

Chuckling, she shook her head. "Not that. I just remembered you still owe me breakfast."

"Right. I do, don't I?"

"Mmhmm. So when do I get to collect?"

Mac grinned suddenly, his blue eyes sharpening to cobalt as he leaned in and brushed his lips against her ear. "Tomorrow morning. And the morning after. And the morning after that. And every morning for the next… oh… thirty years or so."

Stella shivered and bit back a moan as he gently placed a kiss in front of her ear. "Sounds good to me."

"Only one condition."

She pulled back to look him in the eyes, raising an eyebrow slightly. "Oh?"

He turned slightly. His hands left her hips and rose to her face, cupping her cheeks before sliding into her curls. "Let's eat in."

Stella pretended to think about it for a moment then let her eyes meet his. Her hands rested on his waist, and she nodded. "I think I can live with that," she murmured just before her lips met his again.

And suddenly the rest of the world and its problems seemed to just disappear until it was only the two of them.

And that was all they needed.

_Finis  
_


End file.
